


It's Not The Journey

by cosmya



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Arr; Thar Be Feelings, F/M, Fluff and Humor, Ineffable Godfathers, Ineffable Idiots (Good Omens), Light Angst, M/M, Multi, Pining, Post-Canon, Sadder Than It Was Originally Intended To Be, Weddings, minor alcohol abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-22
Updated: 2020-10-03
Packaged: 2021-03-02 23:28:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 22,908
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24325054
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cosmya/pseuds/cosmya
Summary: It had been going so well. They’d averted the apocalypse, averted their punishments, averted further investigation or attention by their respective organizations. They were left with little to do but bask in the happy ending. Therein had been the problem.Another champagne, sir?” interrupted the flight attendant.Aziraphale’s eyes snapped open.Oh, I shouldn’t, he thought. “Yes, please,” he said. “Thank you.”Anathema and Newt are getting married, and two of their wedding guests are in a bit of an awkward place. An all-inclusive resort with unlimited alcohol is precisely what they need to re-break the ice.
Relationships: Anathema Device/Newton Pulsifer, Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens), Warlock Dowling/Adam Young
Comments: 13
Kudos: 108





	1. The Thing About A Falling Out Is That You Have To Land Somewhere.

Everything was warm, and Aziraphale was as much at peace as he ever was.

His bookshop was the setting, Sunday evening the time. An early summer rain pattering on the old windows provided the backdrop. Wandering about, and filling the space with memorized facts about late Mesopotamian history, ionization energy, and _The Tempest_ were Adam and his friends. 

Tomorrow marked the beginning of final exams for their first year at university, and the bookshop had been their preferred place of study since Aziraphale had first offered its “closed” hours to them in September. He brought them tea and answers when they asked, and in return they provided him company and the amiability that tends to develop when you know someone for several years, and also help divert an apocalypse with them once.

He hadn’t seen Crowley in twelve-hundred-and-thirty-seven days. 

This was a fact he didn’t think about quite so much anymore. His eyes drifted back into focus. 

“Aziraphale, do you mind reading my essay again? I made a few edits to the conclusion,” said Wensleydale, handing him a pristine silver laptop. Aziraphale had a working printer, and would have much preferred to read Wensleydale’s Shakespeare essay on paper, but it wouldn’t connect to computers manufactured after 1999. 

He took the laptop, feeling older than he normally did, and Wensleydale sat back down on the dusty wood floor with Pepper and Brian, who were now finalizing their summer plans to backpack across Belgium. Adam was staring out the front window, though nobody had heard him get up.

“Everything alright, Adam?” Aziraphale asked.

“Fine. Postman’s here.”

“It’s Sunday.”

Adam looked back at him and shrugged. He had changed so little since the fateful week, and Aziraphale could relate to that. 

Two letters slid through the slot with a satisfying _click_ , and Adam picked them up, eyeing the addresses suspiciously. He handed one to Aziraphale and began opening his own.

“Erm-” Aziraphale started.

“It’s addressed to me, I’m not stealing your mail. Yours is the same, though. From Anathema.”

Aziraphale’s brows furrowed. It was very like Anathema to know Adam would be here, but he also thought he might’ve read about this sort of situation in a popular book series somewhere. He opened the lilac-colored envelope.

The card was pearly white and embossed with turquoise cursive:

_You’re Invited_

_To the Wedding of Anathema Device and Newton Pulsifer_

_Cancún, Mexico_

_20th June 2020_

_Your response is not necessary._

It was unadorned other than neat printed handwriting expressing “we can’t wait to see you aziraphale, xoxo”. 

Aziraphale looked up, beaming despite himself. He _adored_ weddings, though he hadn’t been to one since that fateful day in the twelfth century (he tended to avoid them out of caution; overexuberance was difficult to do at a wedding but Aziraphale was readily an overachiever). The only thing that could possibly improve upon the concept was it being the wedding of two people he enjoyed as much as Newt and Anathema.

“Yours says the same?” Adam asked casually.

“That she knows I’m coming? Naturally,” Aziraphale replied, the words sounding a little funny from him smiling so much. “Oh, Adam. You know how I worried.”

Adam snorted. “Can you give me a list of what you’ve never worried about?”

“ _You_ wouldn’t be on it, that’s for certain.”

Pepper rolled over. “What’s this about?”

“Anathema and Newt’re getting married,” drawled Adam, twirling the invitation around in his fingers like a magician.

Pepper rolled her eyes, then relaxed into a smile. “When?”

“June 20th,” added Aziraphale. “I expect that’s why you three didn’t receive invitations.”

Brian sat up next, looking more put-off than Pepper. “Damn,” he cursed. “We’ll be in Ghent. Won’t be able to make it,” he added, in case there was anyone left in the room that hadn’t put that together yet.

“We’ll send them your best,” Aziraphale offered.

“Unless you want us to send something else,” Adam countered.

“Oh, Adam,” Aziraphale said under his breath. “I’m going to give Anathema a call. They must be _thrilled_. Oh, I’m so excited. Sorry, Wensleydale, I’ll look at your essay later.” He stood up from the desk, taking his now-cold tea with him to the back room where he could phone Anathema without disturbing any alleged studying taking place.

It was midday in Sonoma, and Anathema answered on the first ring. “Aziraphale!” she exclaimed. “You got it?”

“Of course I got it, dear. I can’t wait to see you. June 20th, that’s so soon!” He refrained from asking the obvious question of whether the date had been set several hundred years prior.

“Well, it’s the summer solstice, and it just _felt right_ , you know? Like…” she trailed off. “Anyway, I’ve been missing you so much. You would love it here, you’ve got to come visit sometime.”

Aziraphale didn’t have a good explanation for why he hadn’t yet visited a sprawling organic farm maintained by an acclaimed cookbook author and her on-and-off boyfriend, both of whom he considered close friends. “I surely will, dear. So - if you don’t mind - how did this come about? How long have you been engaged?”  
  
“Again, you mean? Since last week. We wanted to keep it short this time. When you know it’s right, it’s right, and the first time… we were doing what was expected of us, you know? Then we weren’t, and then we like, _really_ weren’t, because we didn’t… okay, I say _we_ , but you know I mean Newt… we didn’t want to be doing this just because we were supposed to. He was so touchy about that for a while. And after we broke up, I just let it go. I let _him_ go, specifically because I knew I wasn’t supposed to. And that sucked. But it didn’t last long, and you know the rest.” She paused. Aziraphale really wished he was there with her. “I know what you’re thinking, what’s so different about this time?”

“I’m not thinking that, Anathema. I promise.” This was a half-lie, for Aziraphale was thinking about it, but only in the sense that he was trying _not_ to think about it.

Anathema’s answer had the assertiveness she usually reserved for talking about the Loch Ness Monster. “Time. I think that’s all it took. He doesn’t like to be shocked with things anymore. I know it sounds corny, but I think the farm has really helped him settle down his roots, emotionally speaking.”

“That’s very nice to hear. What about you, though?”

“Me?” She laughed; her’s was like a wind chime and it was a favorite of Aziraphale’s. “I never wavered. I guess I never needed Agnes to be a decisive person. It’s not like I was moping and wailing around for him when we were apart, you know that. I just never felt anything for anyone else. I couldn’t help it.”

Aziraphale hummed in commiseration. 

“I’ve been saying this to everyone, but maybe you’re the best person to really _understand_ it: it’s restored my faith in fate.”

“I… yes, I think I know what you mean.”

“We might not’ve seen the new prophecies, but it doesn’t mean they never existed. And I think I can still feel it when they come true.”

Aziraphale smiled uncomfortably and changed the subject. “So. The wedding. Am I to make my own way there, or-”

“Plane tickets are already in your name, your flight is next Saturday at nine. I mean, unless you want to like, miracle yourself there. Up to you. I’m emailing the itinerary to Adam… just a sec… done. Just have him text me if you have any questions on it. Ahhh! I’m so excited. I can’t wait to see you.”

“And you, my dear. You know I will probably say this several hundred times in the next several weeks, but you have my deepest congratulations, which you may please pass along to Newt. And, for the record - I’ll be taking the plane.”

“Wonderful, Aziraphale,” Anathema proclaimed. “I’ll see you soon. Bye!”

“Bye!” replied Aziaphale with all of his remaining enthusiasm.

He hung up the phone and took a deep breath. He hadn’t asked if Crowley was invited.

Holding in a sigh, he left the back room, and as Anathema had predicted, Adam was lounging in the straight-backed wooden chair Aziraphale had vacated, poring over his phone with a smirk on his face. “No fewer than _four_ wine and cheese pairing afternoons,” he said, handing the phone to Aziraphale. “And it looks like you’ll be attending all of them.”

Aziraphale tried to give Adam a chastising look for thinking him so predictable, but then he looked down at the bright screen, where another lilac and turquoise document was pulled up. Sure enough, there was his name under each of the wine tastings, as well as nearly other planned activity for the first part of the week, at least. With a pang, he realized Crowley’s name was alongside his in most of those as well. His wide eyes searched the itinerary; it seemed that both of them would be attending fewer and fewer events as the trip wore on.

Would it really be so hard for them to be around each other that they couldn’t even do it for Anathema and Newt?

Aziraphale willed himself to stop thinking of that. He couldn’t have himself dreading such a wonderful occasion, especially for something as minimal as awkwardness. It was just _Crowley_. They had been through this sort of thing too many times for Aziraphale to keep count now.

“Thank you, Adam.” He gave the phone back and arranged for a smile to light up his face. “Wensleydale, I can look at your essay now.”

* * *

Crowley’s favorite thing about living in Malibu was the weather. 

California was miraculous in that regard. He could actually go _outside_ here without a jacket and his emergency hand warmers. It made him wonder what exactly had been keeping him in London for all those years.

(His various answers to this question, every time it weaseled itself into his mind, were “the flat”, “the Ritz”, “the readily available wine”. His house in Malibu was practically a carbon copy of the London flat, only bigger. Ritzy hotels existed on every block. And California was the world’s fourth-largest wine producer.)

Like most other mornings, he was laying on the black lounge chair on the balcony in the sun. It was June, though it could have been any other month. The crashing of waves a few hundred yards off had lulled him into a state of happy stasis, not asleep but not much of anything else, either. Life was good.

Behind him, deep organ notes clanged, interrupting his newfound appreciation for life. The doorbell; who the Hell was disturbing them on a Sunday?

“I got it, Crowley,” the voice of his adopted-godchild-slash-old-friend-slash-former-charge said, just loud enough for him to hear. Warlock was, surprisingly, an ideal roommate. It probably seemed odd for an eighteen-year-old kid to be living with their former nanny in a decidedly non-scandalous arrangement, but Crowley was adamant that nobody knew he lived here.

Officially, Warlock was a wildly successful college dropout in the realm of investment banking. This was no coincidence; in fact, Crowley had manipulated it all explicitly to make his own life as effortless as possible. It hadn’t been a challenge in the least. Warlock fit right in at Nutter & Co, much more than he had in the Ivy League. Anathema’s mother was the perfect person for him, specifically, to work for. Not in the least because she had accepted it without question when he’d come to work for her, saying it was _what he was supposed to be doing_. 

This was the last real meddling Crowley had gotten into. What’s the use of meddling when everything is going your way?

Whoever was at the door, Warlock didn’t say, and Crowley promptly forgot about it. He drifted back towards unconsciousness.

He couldn’t tell whether it was a dream when he heard Warlock’s voice again, faint, coming from the direction of the kitchen. “Hey, Anathema!”

Crowley’s expression (blissful, but in a dead sort of way) didn’t change. It wasn’t that weird for him to be talking to Anathema; he did work for her mother, though they weren’t exactly close ever since Anathema moved north. 

“Yeah, congratulations!” echoed from the kitchen. That was weird. Warlock wasn’t usually the enthusiastic type, but he sounded positively elated. He must have been sincere about it, which was also unusual for him.

There was a short silence, although if Crowley really concentrated, he thought he could hear Anathema’s voice on the other end of the phone line.

Warlock’s was back. “Can’t wait to see you. Why didn’t your mom say anything? I mean, how long has this been in the works? I thought you’d just gotten back together, now-”

Crowley couldn’t guess what this was about.

“Shit, June 20th? That’s so soon. So are we meeting you there, or what?”

_‘We’_? This wasn’t a good sign.

“Okay. Awesome. I’ll let him know. I’m _so_ excited. I’ll see you then, can’t wait. Congratulations again, Anathema, I’m so happy for you. Bye!”

Crowley groaned. Obviously some sort of tragedy had occurred, one that sounded like it might involve him needing to leave the sun lounger on the balcony, and possibly even the house itself.

Sure enough, Warlock’s subdued footsteps were headed towards him. Unfortunately, he no longer had the luxury of Warlock maybe thinking him asleep and leaving him alone, because he already did that every day. So with all of his might, he sat up, stretching, preparing for the worst.

“Crowley?”

“You have bad news, I assume?”

Warlock laughed. “You wish. Anathema and Newt’re getting married. In a couple weeks, in Mexico. W-I’m planning on going. You’re invited too. But, like, no pressure.”

“No pressure,” Crowley repeated. “I'm calling foul. She already knows I’m coming, doesn’t she?”

“She didn’t say, but… it’s Anathema, so.”

Crowley swung his legs off the chair, turning to look at Warlock. His left cheek was sunken from him biting on it, and his hands were fidgeting behind his back. He wasn’t very good at playing it cool, or keeping his nerves in check, or meeting people, and this was sure to be a stressful experience for him. He wasn’t truly obligated to go, seeing as he barely knew Anathema and Newt, and this was little more than a work event for him. But Crowley could tell that there was enough in him that _wanted_ to go to overcome all that.

He sighed. He couldn’t leave Warlock to suffer alone. “Yeah. You’re right. Guess I don’t have a choice, do I? When do we leave?”

Warlock’s face split into a genuine smile. “She’s emailing us itineraries. Thanks, Crowley, I’m - I’m really glad you’re coming.”

Crowley grunted a response and adjusted the lounge chair to lay all the way back. He was due for a _real_ nap after this nightmare of a morning.

* * *

Airplanes were a real guilty pleasure for Aziraphale. At once, he was doing something that felt so _wrong_ , by being suspended in air by the miracle of physics rather than that of his own baseline-level miraculity, but also so _right_ , because he was proving to all the humans around that he was One of Them. 

He also really liked the tiny bottles of sparkling wine. In fact, he had never thought of drinking at such a high altitude before his first commercial flight in 1996. (He was a late adopter.) By that point, he was several thousand years over the whole _wing_ thing, due to the waning ability of humans to disbelieve their own eyes. So now, drinking on planes was his only recourse.

Somewhere over the Atlantic, he was trying not to wake Adam, who fell asleep after takeoff as easily as if changing one’s conscious state was a simple yes or no toggle switch. Aziraphale had already read the in-flight magazine twice, as well as the book he’d brought along, and the complexities of the coach-class cabin were not enough to hold his interest for more than a few seconds at a time. Aziraphale was rarely a bored person; all his lived millenia had forced endurance upon him. But _this_ was a challenge.

The flight left him with the perfect opportunity to think about exactly the thing that he really didn’t want to think about, but knew he should, as it would be presenting itself to him in all of its wiggly hips and tight pants glory at the 5PM cocktail hour today.

Three and a half years really wasn’t a long time for him not to talk to Crowley. It was such a small percentage of their achingly long lives - akin to a human not seeing a friend for a couple weeks. There had been stretches, though mostly long ago now, that they didn’t see each other for centuries. 

Aziraphale closed his eyes and rubbed his temples. All the logic in the world couldn’t convince him that he missed Crowley beyond measure.

It had been going so _well_. They’d averted the apocalypse, averted their punishments, averted further investigation or attention by their respective organizations. They were left with little to do but bask in the happy ending. Therein had been the problem.

“Another champagne, sir?” interrupted the flight attendant.

His eyes snapped open. _Oh, I shouldn’t_ , he thought. “Yes, please,” he said. “Thank you.”

The flight attendant smiled and went back up the aisle. Aziraphale decided to reread the in-flight magazine for a third time.

* * *

It was probably all in his head, but Crowley was easily susceptible to altitude sickness these days. 

‘These days’ meaning the last several thousand years. He knew that God did not _literally_ reside a few meters past the Earth’s atmosphere, of course. There were some dimensional entanglements and metaphysical transformations involved that Crowley paid little mind to. It was much easier to pretend that what was probably a garden-variety case of air pressure-induced corporeal discomfort was actually Crowley’s continued personal punishment for his past saunterings.

Six hours to go, he reminded himself as he vaguely heard Warlock fretting about something or other. He frowned, as if that would help, and reached up to press the ‘call attendant’ button. Hair of the dog, that was what he needed.

“Erm, yes, can I get another Bloody Mary?” he practically begged when she arrived. “Warlock, you want anything?”

“We’re not even out of California yet, Crowley.”

“Oh, right.”

“I’d take a coffee, though.”

The flight attendant, clearly trying not to laugh, asked if he wanted cream and sugar, and Warlock shook his head as if taking his coffee black was a point of pride. 

“Are you going to be drunk the whole time?” he asked Crowley.

“Hopefully.”

“Isn’t your, um, friend going to be there?” Warlock knew that Aziraphale was both his fondly-remembered Brother Francis _and_ a sore subject, but if there was anything he was good at, it was pressing Crowley’s buttons when they were getting a little rusty, and Crowley appreciated him for that.

“ _Yeeep_. Hence. The alcohol. Honestly, you’re the one who’s gonna need it. You’ll know, what, like two people there?” 

Warlock, even after Crowley’s best efforts, didn’t drink. He was rebellious, yes, and didn’t find laws worthy of respect most of the time, but rebelling against Crowley usually happened to involve doing the lawful thing.

“We’ll see,” Warlock shrugged. He sounded hopeful. “You ever going to tell me what happened between you and Aziraphale?”

The flight attendant was back with their drinks, and Crowley took a long sip of the vile tomato and vodka concoction to buy himself some time. “Nothing happened. A couple years is like, a couple days for us. It’s nothing.”

Warlock stared at the drink as if this was proof of the exact opposite. “You’re such a liar.”

“I know. Fine. We had one awkward night, okay? I’m sure it’ll pass once we see each other again. Why do you care, anyway?” he asked, trying to deflect from the fact that he had just lied again.

“I don’t,” Warlock deflected, punching a few buttons on the miniature TV screen in front of him. “But I know you moping for the next six hours is going to inhibit my ability to catch up on My Hero Academia, and I’d rather it didn’t.”

Crowley snorted. “Your lying skills are worse than mine.”

Warlock didn’t reply, but engaged himself in his coffee and the seatback screen. Crowley sighed. “I highly doubt they have anime.”


	2. His Spanish Isn't Very Good, But At Least He's Trying

It was bright and sunny and warm when Adam and Aziraphale arrived at the resort, and Aziraphale knew that he must have been pretty drunk, because of  _ course _ it was bright and sunny and warm. He slid out of the shuttle gracelessly onto the stone driveway up front, thinking about how Crowley wouldn’t be caught dead in the back of one of those equally graceless vehicles.

When he nearly tripped over the luggage that Adam had pulled out of the trunk, he decided it was time to sober up. He concentrated hard, and a moment and deep shiver later, the world had righted itself.

“Er… mucho gracias,” he said to the driver in absolutely terrible Spanish, tipped him, then put his hand to his brow, shading his eyes so that the beauty of the resort could hit him properly.

It was all light polished stone and gold accents, though done more tastefully than he was used to seeing. The sweet tinkling of fountains lined the outer wall and inside the lobby, he saw people he recognized. He smiled to Adam, who looked more at home here than he did anywhere else except Tadfield. “Shall we check in?”

A bellhop took their bags and a cerulean shape that looked vaguely Anathema-esque turned and spotted them from inside the lobby. Aziraphale could hear her shouting their names from his place out in the heat.

She ran out and pulled them both into a group hug. She looked as lovely as Aziraphale had remembered her, and rather happier, and he couldn’t help heaping praise on her choice of venue and general personal attributes. As they approached the front desk, Aziraphale realized with a pang that he’d only ever said the word ‘beautiful’ so much in the presence of someone else.

Newt looked no less awkward than ever, with his cargo shorts and Hawaiian shirt and overburdened sandals, but had an air of ease around him that Aziraphale had never seen. “Hi Aziraphale, hi Adam. How was your flight?” he asked, trying to make conversation.

“Fine, fine. Happy to be here. Really happy.” Aziraphale glanced quickly around the lobby. No Crowley. Or, at least, nobody in head to toe black, so unless Crowley was getting more into the vacation spirit than Aziraphale thought was possible of him… no Crowley.

“There’s been a bit of an unforeseen oddity with the rooms,” said Anathema, voice tight.

“Really? Unforeseen?” Adam teased.

Anathema narrowed her eyes at him and Aziraphale got to praying that him and Crowley hadn’t been forced to share the honeymoon suite or anything like that. 

“We’d booked a block of rooms, everyone having their own and everything. But it turns out that they aren’t all together. Here,” she motioned to the map on the counter with a bright yellow fingernail. The front desk employee looked as if smiling and pretending that guests hadn’t made stupid assumptions was her calling in life. “Most of us are right here,” Anathema said, pointing at the silver inky circle towards the center of the resort, by the wave pool and on-site dance club. “But you’re all the way over here,” her finger traced towards the south side, “all alone.”

The front desk woman continued to smile apologetically. “We would normally be happy to change it, but we’re totally booked. I’ve already sent a complimentary bottle of champagne up to say sorry.”

“It’s no problem at all, dear.” Aziraphale mostly meant what he said. It would probably be quieter, away from the water slides and such, and this way he didn’t need to be bothered if he needed some time alone.

Anathema nodded. Aziraphale was a great liar in that specific respect. She showed Adam which room was his (the one in the center of it all, naturally) and as he was asking about each of the dozen restaurants, Aziraphale pondered the map. There was another silver circle around a room by itself on the north side of the compound.

Aziraphale was anything but a gambler, but he was  _ positive _ he knew who that room had to belong to.

Suddenly uneasy, he asked the resort employee for his room key, bid the rest of the group goodbye, and assured them he’d be coming down to cocktail hour at the beach as soon as he got settled in. 

He walked quickly around pools and buildings, paying little attention to what was around him.  _ Opposite sides,  _ really? Was he doomed to punishment via literal-ness for the rest of time? This wasn’t funny, this wasn’t an accident, this-

He almost tripped and fell into a lazy river when a worse thought wormed its way into his brain. Crowley had just as much miracle-making power as he did. What if he had done this on purpose?

“Are you alright, sir?” someone asked him. He nodded his head vigorously and pulled his focus back to the sidewalk in front of him. Just one more restaurant to pass, judging by his crystal-clear memory of the map, and he would be safely alone to freak out as much as he needed to before the cocktail hour he was doomed to attend at five.

Finally, Building 13 loomed before him. It was smaller, more intimate than the others, only three stories instead of six, with lush greenery spiraling up the outdoor staircases and glass balconies. A tasteful sign informed him that his room, 1313, was on the top floor and to his left. His worries began to vanish. At least he would have a nice view of the sea. 

He ascended the shallow curving staircase, which was open to the outside, breathing in the salty air (a bit more desperately than he would like to admit). At the end of the hallway, a dark wooden door with mother-of-pearl numbers proclaimed 1313. It was silent this far away from the rest of the resort, and though it was supposed to be at capacity, Aziraphale realized he hadn’t seen anybody else since reaching the building.

He stuck his room key into the digital reader and opened the door.

The room was expansive, with two walls of glass looking out over the ocean, and not too bright with its emerald couches and bronze fixtures. But what really struck Aziraphale about it was the heart-shaped jacuzzi tub in the middle of it.

He blushed despite the fact that he was alone in what was very clearly the honeymoon suite, and made a beeline for the complimentary champagne.

* * *

“You know, Crowley, just  _ once _ , couldn’t you try not being late to something?”

“No,” Crowley answered. It was forty after five and him and Warlock had just pulled up to the resort. “It’s not my fault that the damned car rental place refused to give me anything suitable.” 

‘Suitable’ would’ve meant a Porsche, at minimum. ‘Ideal’ would obviously be the Bentley, or at least  _ a _ Bentley. Crowley had settled for ‘ _ ugh,  _ fine’, which was a shiny black Mercedes. 

He swayed out of the driver’s seat, wishing that he wasn’t sober. “Listen,” he announced, handing the keys to a valet, “you lot really ought to be waiting with piña coladas for arriving guests. Just a suggestion.”

Warlock rolled his eyes. “Come on,” he pressed on to the lobby.

“Why’re you so eager?”

“I’m not  _ eager _ . Just carsick.”

Crowley snorted. “That’s your own fault. Ought to be used to it by now.”

With far less fanfare (read: tantrums) than had occurred at the car rental lot, Warlock and Crowley checked in. When Crowley was told of his room assignment, he laughed out loud. Ostracized even by accident, it seemed. But he couldn’t complain too much, or really at all, for with a knowing look, the front desk employee informed him that his room was mere steps away from Cancún’s most extensive on-resort wine cellar.

Warlock then decided to head straight down to the beach for the cocktail hour, mentioning something about how the bellhop could take care of his bags and he was really  _ far _ too late already, I mean, this is his  _ employer’s daughter’s wedding _ . Crowley bid him goodbye, for the last time he showed up to a party sober was before the invention of alcohol (which, funnily enough, had occurred at that very angelic get-together), and he was not about to start again today.

His room was on the far north side of the resort, and he walked there as quickly as he could without pulling a muscle, not wishing to be spotted by anyone he knew before he was entirely prepared. He could feel the humidity frizzing his shoulder-length hair into a thunderstorm and the heat softening his bones in that familiar Malibu sort of way. Still, he kept the black leather jacket squeezing his shoulders on. The cold airplane air hung heavy in his memory.

In a sober haze, he found his room quickly.

It was air-conditioner cold inside and seemed to be little better than a standard two-star hotel room. It had the aura of being much older than the rest of the resort, though the dark wood veneered furnishings and pearly-white accents begged him to believe his eyes and not his nose. A thud and the unmistakable sounds of cartoons interrupted his evaluation from above. He scowled, and went into the bathroom to begin taming the crimson conflagration on his head.

When the bellhop knocked on the door fifteen minutes later to deliver his bags, Crowley’s hair looked somehow worse than it did before, and he understood that there was nothing he could do to help it. He would just have to distract from it in some other way.

What does one wear when one wants to make an entrance in front of several old acquaintances one hasn’t seen in many years, most of whom are surprised one is even showing up to this thing? Especially when one is preternaturally concerned about looking  _ cool _ ?

This question stumped Crowley. He unzipped his matte black suitcase with abandon and began rifling through what he’d brought, scowl deepening and regret growing as he judged each item. Finally, when he hit the bottom, he decided he needed help.

“Damn it all,” he muttered to himself. “S’got to be a minibar in here somewhere.”

* * *

Aziraphale understandably had his doubts regarding the nature versus nurture debate. As such, he couldn’t decide whether Newt’s parents made a  _ lot _ of sense or no sense at all.

The angel had been introduced to them under the incognito designation of “an old friend”. The double meaning of those words hadn’t been lost on Aziraphale. But Newt’s parents didn’t seem to find it odd in the slightest that their millennial son had such a strange array of “old friends”, and Newt’s father in particular had looked upon Aziraphale with an almost frightening degree of respect when he’d said that he ran a bookshop for a living. He had proudly announced that he himself had a home library containing over three thousand books.

The ensuing conversation engaged Aziraphale so delightfully that he’d almost forgotten who still hadn’t bothered to show up. That, and the ice-cold white wine in his hand, the feeling of linen against his skin, the gentle sounds of the waves-

“Crowley!”

“Hey, Crowley!”

“Dude!”

Aziraphale’s breath caught mid-word.  _ Don’t look don’t look don’t look- _

He turned around gracelessly. 

The demon might as well have been a forest fire. Hair wild and practically aflame, clothes as black as ash, alcohol clearly fueling it all, and unpredictably flitting between the little groups of guests to impose himself, spreading his danger. The breeze picked up, but instead of carrying the cool sea air, it burned. The wine glass in Aziraphale’s hand was the only thing preventing him from total incineration.

Crowley spotted him and Aziraphale realized that he had totally ignored the question Newt’s father had just posed around favored non-regulation shelving techniques. 

“Aziraphale!!!” called a familiar voice.

“If you’ll  _ please _ excuse me,” the angel begged of Newt’s father.

Crowley grabbed a glass of rosé from a passing server and stumbled over. “Long time no see!” He clapped Aziraphale on the shoulder and Aziraphale was surprised not to smell burning fabric. Crowley spun him around as if introducing him. “This. Is Aziraphale. My oldest friend. Known him for-” the calculus spinning in Crowley’s mind would have stumped Einstein- “a really long time.”

Aziraphale smiled uncomfortably, looking down. He wished this didn’t have to be public, though it was probably better this way, because there was no telling what Crowley would do without the presence of bystanders. “Hello, Crowley.”

The invocation of his name shrunk Crowley’s area of focus to a pinpoint. A pinpoint like a black hole. “I’m so glad you’re here. Just between you and I-” he made no attempt to lower his voice- “I really mostly came for you.”

“Did you now,” Aziraphale replied, dazed.

“I missed you, angel. So much. Just me and Warlock. It gets a little dull, you see.”

A light shone from the black hole. “You’re still in contact with Warlock?”

“Roommates, actually,” Crowley divulged, as if he was revealing a slightly gross medical infliction that he really ought to get checked out.

“How nice. I assume he’s here as well?” Aziraphale asked, grateful to have found a more appropriate topic of conversation.

Crowley looked around, frowning. “He’s s’posed to be. He made it to Cancún, I can promise you that, at least.”

Aziraphale wasn’t sure he would still recognize Warlock (given that the fake eyebrows he used to see Warlock through made everything appear very fuzzy) but he searched the crowd all the same. “Oh. Interesting. I don’t see Adam either.”

“You still talk to Adam?”

“Sometimes, yes. He lives in the university dormitories, but comes ‘round the bookshop now and again to study.”

“The bookshop,” Aziraphale supposed that Crowley was looking wistfully into the distance, by the sound of his voice, but the lenses of his omnipresent sunglasses (actually appropriate, for once) seemed even blacker than normal.

“Erm…” stumbled Aziraphale, trying to think of something to say that wouldn’t dredge up any memories. “How is California?”

“California?” clarified Crowley. “Oh. It’s wonderful. Not as warm as here, but…”

“Better than London, I’m sure,” answered Aziraphale with a sad smile. The dredging had commenced in full, apparently.

“Well…”

Aziraphale swallowed with some difficulty, and with a quick glance around to ensure nobody was eavesdropping, decided to be brave. What better did he have to say? “Crowley… are we going to talk about…”

“What happened? Do you  _ want _ to, angel?”

The way he said  _ angel _ made it sound like he had never left that night in the bookshop.

“I asked you first.”

Crowley’s airy demeanor evaporated. “I’d rather forget about it. Permanently. Nothing’s changed. So what’s the point of bringing it back up?”

Aziraphale pursed his lips, unsure of how to continue.  _ Had _ nothing changed? Crowley could mean anything by that. Did he still feel… that way? Or was he simply implying his disbelief that Azirphale had changed - had grown new emotions, perhaps, or  _ outgrown _ his denial of what was already there?

It was probably neither. If Crowley wanted to forget about it forever, but was perfectly happy to be here talking to Aziraphale, unabashedly admitting how much he’d missed him, it must mean that everything was back to normal. That they were friends, and that friends was what Crowley wanted. Permanently. That it was the night in the bookshop and the subsequent exodus to California that was the mistake, not failing to tell Aziraphale his true feelings sooner.

It wouldn’t do for Aziraphale to go on believing that time and distance, and certainly loneliness, had dutifully made the heart ( _ his _ heart) grow fonder. That belief was the sole responsibility of his glass of wine. Which was currently being helped by Crowley’s smirk, and the warmth he couldn’t help but radiate, and the smell Aziraphale had never forgotten. 

Nope. Aziraphale himself wouldn’t be taking those into account. They would remain muted indefinitely. This was a wedding, not  _ his _ , and certainly not  _ their _ , wedding, and they were both present to celebrate the bride and groom and nothing more. No matter what Crowley said about who he was really there for. This was not about them in any way, shape, or form, and Aziraphale wasn’t about to let Crowley spiral it.

So he smiled, falling back into his default expression of good-naturedness. “Agreed. Nothing’s changed, because ‘nothing’ happened,” he lied.

“Glad we’re on the same page. Now, where’s Anathema? I need to pretend to be horrendously offended that she never comes down to Malibu… not that she knows I live there… although  _ she _ of all people probably does… Well, I’ll do it anyway… come on.”

Gratefully, Aziraphale decided to take Anathema’s side.

* * *

Reluctantly, Crowley had mostly sobered up by dinner. By the end of the beachfront happy hour, he’d had difficulty staying upright (and a  _ wonderful _ time), and Aziraphale had quietly suggested that they’d both had quite enough for the night. As the whole party walked to the on-resort Italian restaurant Newt had chosen for dinner, sobriety crept back into the air, and doubt with it.

Crowley was pretty sure that Aziraphale had believed his lie about not wanting to speak about “it” ever again. It  _ had _ been a good lie. Most people liked to forget their past errors and embarrassments, and, when possible, learn from them.

But Crowley was not most people, and Aziraphale definitely wasn’t either. He had been on this planet far too long to go on forgetting each and every mistake; the garbage was spilling out of the bin, so to speak. Moreover, it wasn’t fair to Aziraphale to treat their lives and feelings as fleeting after all they’d been through. Reluctantly, Crowley  _ had _ learned from his admissions - chief among them his desire to no longer pretend and the way he felt like Aziraphale had been toying with him for centuries - in the bookshop. He’d  _ learned _ to stop disbelieving himself.

In a half-haze, he found that he’d been seated at the restaurant. Naturally, Aziraphale was next to him, though Crowley had the vague memory of them both being ushered into these spots rather than spontaneously choosing them. He adjusted his sunglasses and rubbed his left eye. There was a place setting with his name in violet script between his full water glass and his empty wine glass.

Across the table, Adam and Warlock were seated close to each other and chatting animatedly about something, though Crowley couldn’t tell what it was over the buzzing in his ears.

“Something to drink, sir?”

Crowley let his eyelids droop shut. “Bloody Mary.”

“Crowley, it’s eight PM,” nudged Aziraphale.

“Mm. Make it a double, then.”

He could feel Aziraphale’s disapproval radiating off of him like dry ice, but the angel was in no position to order the waiter otherwise, as Crowley wasn’t belligerent quite yet. Instead, he turned to Crowley, asking, “are you going to be drunk this whole trip?”

“Funny. Warlock asked me the same thing.”

Aziraphale’s concerned expression deepened to worry. “At least eat something.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“I’m sure you aren’t. But you have to eat dinner.”

Crowley smirked. “That’s why I ordered a Bloody Mary. All your food groups in one place. Fruits, vegetables, bacon; you’ve even got grain in there from the vodka. I’m really thinking of my health, Aziraphale. You ought to be proud.”

“I was thinking more along the lines of an entreé.”

Since when did Aziraphale think Crowley partook in  _ entreés _ ? Had he actually forgotten that much? Replaced Crowley with a memory he found rather rosier, in the sense that they could commiserate over a good gnocchi? “Oh, give it up.”

Aziraphale huffed, but evidently he had just enough respect left for Crowley that he didn’t push further. It was clear that Crowley would need to come up with a nice, long list of changes of subject for the next week.

Fortunately, Anathema’s mother stood up and started to make a sort of speech about true love always finding its way back home and how grateful she was that Newt’s family was joining with theirs, and this was ample distraction for Aziraphale, who loved that sort of junk. Crowley, of course, was highly allergic to it, so he took to paying attention to something that would make him feel quite the opposite.

Warlock and Adam were, to the unlearned observer, listening intently. But Crowley could tell, from the way they were sitting, too far apart, too stiff, eyes rather glazed, that their minds were anywhere but on Warlock’s boss. The mostly-empty glass of red wine at Warlock’s place setting didn’t help matters.

It appeared that Warlock would most certainly not be needing Crowley to keep him company this week.

* * *

If someone were to, by complete happenstance, find themselves overhearing the conversation of two oddly dressed men who were sitting at the bar, leisurely referencing a similar catchup in Babylon and a strange coincidence in Wales during the Dark Ages, they would be unable to tear their attention away no matter how hard they tried. Art Pulsifer was not a nosy man. He was actually deeply respectful, thank you, and if he’d imbibed one too many sherries, he would deem himself the kindest and most open-minded fellow he knew. Additionally, he had a lot to be happy about lately, and him sitting on a wicker chair at the  _ Almeja Dorada  _ reading the newspaper all alone at this hour was just an unfortunate circumstance.

It was doing very little to quell his anxiety. See, there had been a nagging feeling of off-ness slithering around his spine for quite a while now, and it had been growing less and less ignorable since his Newt had met Anathema (a  _ lovely  _ woman, of course, and he couldn’t be happier for them). Upon his arrival in Mexico, this feeling had begun coiling tighter and tighter, and it was now constricting him, anaconda-like, rendering him quite unable to relax.

_ Somebody _ was lying to him. At least one of the wedding guests was hiding something, and from the conversations that had trickled into his brain like rain into dense soil, probably  _ several _ of them. Art understood that people, by the very nature of living, kept secrets. And he wasn’t the type to pry, far from it, despite his propensity to voraciously consume true-crime podcasts on the bus to work every day. But he could not avoid the fact that the Aziraphale fellow, with whom he’d had such a lovely conversation with before being interrupted by the messy, sunglasses-wearing one (yes, he knew his name was Crowley), was presently speaking of a “mission” he had dreadfully failed at regarding the virginity of Queen Elizabeth.

Art didn’t think that was the sort of thing someone like Aziraphale would make up as a joke, and Crowley wasn’t laughing. Naturally, it had to be code. Art’s eyes glazed over, affixed to a dreadful restaurant review on page fourteen, as he listened in.

“No, Warlock’s not the type. Honestly, don’t know why anyone would be interested in the first place.”

Aziraphale’s answer was doubtful. “While I’m inclined to agree with you based on my recollection from the whole  _ arrangement _ thing, my senses told me very differently tonight. Accept it, Crowley.”

“Don’t want to.”

“Why not?”

“Don’t tell me you want them together.”

It was pretty clear to Art now. This was obviously about a business merger, probably tech; they always had the weird geeky names. 

“I don’t, Crowley. I… I don’t think it would be a good match.”

Crowley’s voice turned devious. “Seems like there’s only one thing for us to do, then. It’ll be just like old times.”

“You mean… we interfere? Try to delay the inevitable again?”

“It worked last time, didn’t it?”

There was a silence, and Art made a show of turning the page to retain inconspicuity. This was none of his business, and he didn’t really  _ care _ about tech mergers, but the way Crowley and Aziraphale spoke of it, combined with the fact that he now knew Aziraphale had been lying about owning a bookshop, had piqued his suspicion towards the two. Newt had never really explained how he met them, or what they were to him now, and certainly not why they continued to be friends. Was Newt in on this too? Was the California farm just a front for involvement in a secretive, high-dollar hedge fund?

Art didn’t like to speculate. He shut the newspaper, gave a sidelong glance to Aziraphale and Crowley, who were speaking more quietly now, and made to leave the bar. It was getting late, and Susan was already at the room, and if he woke her up now, he would be treated to her 5:30 AM spite alarm. This was a vacation, and he needed to relax.

No, Art would resist the urge to speculate. Well, at least until he had more information.


	3. Long Walks On The Beach Aren't As Relaxing As They Sound, You Know.

In Aziraphale’s opinion, the only thing better than dinner was breakfast. He’d been even more restless than usual the previous night, and after his over-drinks catchup with Crowley, he’d gone back to his room, paced around the overlarge place for no fewer than three hours, then decided enough was enough, and went to pace on the beach instead. Consequently, his calves were very sore today.

Nothing a strong cup of tea and an omelet, and a chocolate croissant, and a few crepes couldn’t fix. He was seated at the French-themed breakfast full-service with the other early risers, those being Anathema and her mother, Newt’s mother Susan, and a few other assorted relatives Aziraphale should be trying harder to befriend. The conversation and cuisine was doing wonders for Aziraphale’s psyche.

Carmen Device looked down at her delicate gold watch and began folding her napkin neatly. “I think it’s about time we wrap up - our appointments are at nine.”

“Appointments?” asked Aziraphale. This hadn’t been on the itinerary.

“Yes, do you want to join us? We’re getting pedicures. I’m sure they’d be happy to take one more,” she answered.

Anathema did a happy clap. “Oh, Aziraphale, you have to come! What else would you be doing today?”

Aziraphale didn’t bother to think about what he would rather be doing. One of his few remaining secrets, which he kept from  _ everyone _ , especially Crowley, was his bi-monthly pedicure appointment. Fascination Nail Salon was 80 minutes away by bus and they knew him there as Philip, no last name. He always paid in cash and wore a lavender overcoat and tartan slacks he had bought specifically as a disguise. Outside the sacred walls of Fascination’s, nobody ever saw his feet. He wore socks approximately 97% of the time when alone. 

He was already five days overdue. Was his pride worth that much to him?

“I would  _ love _ to! Nine, you said? I’ll meet you there.”

* * *

An hour and a half later, Aziraphale was headed for the spa at a very controlled pace so as not to attract unnecessary interest. His full attention was on his footsteps and the ground beneath them, for he was unnaturally afraid of another almost-falling-in-the-pool incident right before something he was excited for. His stomach was settled, his mind was impenetrably walled-off, and he had pre-selected some stern words for anyone who interrupted his journey.

At least, until the breeze picked up, and he caught the scent of roses and salt on it, and he had to stop, for it had wriggled through his defenses and taken hold.

He looked up and perceived. He had failed to give the resort its due with regards to its objective beauty. Especially in the morning, when everything was sober and fresh, and most importantly, quiet. 

Aziraphale had a strained but dependent relationship with quiet. Shortly after he’d first moved in, he had performed a permanent miracle upon the bookshop: an invisible barrier just inside its walls blocking the street noise from outside. It had seemed like such a good idea, a simple thing to make his time there more pleasant. Totally and impassably silent. 

It lasted until he had hallucinated quite so deeply as to think he could hear the dust falling onto the books. This took about three minutes.

After that, Aziraphale had adjusted the barrier to let just a little sound through, just enough to keep him sane. And he had gotten quite used to it.

Now that he was so far away, it was clear that his solution had been a dreadful failure.  _ This _ , actually, this midmorning, was true quiet, no matter that he could hear the breeze through the palms and distant waves and bird-chatter. It was infinitely better than the artificial stuff Aziraphale had made.

When he spotted the rest of the party walking together towards the spa, he joined them, feeling much less like Aziraphale and much more at peace than he had since he arrived. 

The spa was all dark, porous stone and dimmed golden glow, the windows paned in stained glass in warm tones. It was much at odds with the indiscernible brightness of the rest of the property, and the matte, vesicled walls and steam swirling above candles gave the impression of being under a volcano. It smelled of lavender, chiefly, but with something prickly underneath it, like sulfur; Aziraphale wondered whether there were hot springs nearby.

Carmen checked them in and Aziraphale pretended to be interested in a subdued display of resort-branded body butters and sun salves. Actually, he was considering just how large Crowley’s eye roll would be at the spa’s atmosphere. Probably powerful enough to lift his feet from the ground.

Their wait wasn’t long, though, and the group was ushered down a hallway lined with viney plants on wooden shelves and reproduction Mayan carvings. Aziraphale, who was still in perception-over-people mode, was silent and barely noticed what the rest of them were talking about. 

This only lasted until he was seated in the anthracite-black pedicure chair, and faintly heard a question that could only be directed at him.

“So, are you happy to see Crowley again?” Carmen asked. She was seated directly across from Aziraphale and had selected a sunset-on-water orange polish, which she clutched in well-manicured hands.

“Erm- you know him?”

Anathema, who was seated next to her mother, smiled wickedly. “I may have told her all about you two. I mean. I did. But it wasn’t news to her, if you catch my drift.”

Carmen shrugged. “Agnes never referenced you by name, of course, but once Anathema started talking about you two, I knew.”

Aziraphale and Susan, who was standing next to him holding a sensibly pink bottle of polish, voiced their confusion at once.

“What did she say?”

“Agnes?”

Anathema and Carmen laughed in harmony. “Agnes is family,” Carmen said in the vaguest of senses. “Anathema… prophecy 1399?”

“And there shalle be Two, of worldes Above and Belowe, and they shalle endure Togethere forevermore.”

Aziraphale coughed politely, feeling his cheeks redden. “That could be anything, couldn’t it?”

The pedicurists interrupted this not-at-all significant moment by beckoning them to cushy massage chairs to begin their sessions.

“That’s the thing,” Anathema said as she settled into her chair, “you always think the prophecies could be about anything until you stumble upon  _ exactly _ what they’re about.”

“And then you just know,” Carmen added from her left.

Susan laughed nervously. “I’m not following. Above and Below? What on Earth does that mean?”

“It’s symbolic,” Aziraphale assured her quickly. “At least. I don’t know. You would have to ask them. But I think.”

“Symbolic or not, I just knew it was about you and Crowley the moment I saw you on the airfield,” Anathema said. “I told Mom about it afterward, and she totally agreed. And now that you guys are both here? It’s so obvious.”

“Maybe…” Aziraphale qualified. “I mean, it’s just a prophecy, though. The ‘enduring’ part…” he chose his next words carefully, not wanting to alarm Susan, though she was clearly already half-there, “well, of course that’s true, but what does it really  _ mean _ ?”

Carmen and Anathema gave each other a Look. “We’ve been focusing more on the ‘Togethere’. Aziraphale, we  _ saw _ you last night. Acting all awkward and formal, but with that antagonistic undertone that I had never really seen in you. Mom and I  _ know _ when something’s up.”

The goodwill Aziraphale had for the Devices (which was prodigious!) slowly began to evaporate. “There are always… fractures when one knows somebody for a very long time.”

“And what are you doing to mend it?” asked Carmen.

“There’s nothing to mend!” Aziraphale said with a sternness that got him a glance upward from the pedicurist. “Isn’t that what the prophecy means? That it doesn’t matter what I do?”

Carmen gave him a pitying look. “You don’t understand, honey.”

“It doesn’t mean you don’t have to try,” Anathema added.

Susan decided she understood enough of this now to chime in. “Love takes work, dear,” she suggested in a deeply-unhelpful way.

“It’s not-” Aziraphale stopped himself. 

“Just give him a chance,” Anathema said. “I bet he’s being patient for you. Don’t make him wait.”

“What if I don’t feel the same way?”

“Who said anything about that?” asked Carmen. “Agnes didn’t specify one  _ type _ of togetherness. We aren’t either. Take away that assumption, and what’s left?”

Aziraphale bit his tongue. What, indeed?

* * *

The steam above the hot tub floated like stormclouds. They were not enough to blot out the powerful Mexican sun, much like how the most liberal application of sunscreen could not provide satisfactory armor for the visage of pasty Londoners. Also, it fogged Crowley’s sunglasses dreadfully.

The three of them - himself, Newt, and Warlock - had set up shop in Hot Tub C in the Sea Star Courtyard having failed at finding a suitably quiet and not-child-infested area of the resort, which didn’t ultimately matter, as they weren’t chatting much anyway. It wasn’t that they didn’t get along, but they were an awkward grouping considering Crowley and Warlock’s deeply limited past interactions with Newt. The main thing they had in common was that they had all declined to participate in the afternoon’s salsa-dancing lesson.

This was all fine to Crowley, who was simply enjoying the intense heat and the tight-lipped glances of Americans who had seen his bathing attire and deemed it insufficiently baggy, long, and hibiscus-patterned for their sensitive eyeballs. Warlock was half-turned around with his elbows on the tile deck, phone in hand, texting furiously. Crowley ignored Warlock’s wry smile, which was clearly intended for himself and the subject of such texts alone. Meanwhile, Newt was fidgeting.

All good things must come to an end, though, and Crowley was bored, so with a sigh, he broke the silence. “So… how’d you end up with the name Newt?”

“It’s short for Newton,” he answered helpfully.

“Oh… that’s not much better, is it.”

“Isn’t yours Crowley?”

“Anthony Crowley, but Anthony’s a little plain, don’t you think?”

Warlock set his phone down and butted in. “Do I need to remind both of you that my legal name is literally ‘Warlock’?”

This was the catalyst for another silence.

It didn’t last long. “Who’re you texting?” nudged Crowley. Having been his roommate for a sizeable chunk of Warlock’s life had given Crowley valuable ammunition, ahem, insights into Warlock’s behavior. Such behavior was not rife with texting, and when it was, it rarely elicited the smile he’d been hiding.

“Nobody,” Warlock replied carelessly.

“I guess that’d be why you’re so happy, then.”

This earned Crowley a splash in the pointed direction of his sunglasses.

Newt eyed them suspiciously. “Remind me, how do you two know each other?”

“Er,” Crowley began, and then decided that the effort of coming up with a suitable lie was more than he was currently capable of, given the time of day. “Roommates.”

“He used to nanny me,” added Warlock.

“O-oh.”

“Trust me,” said Crowley in the most trustworthy tone he could muster. “It’s a lot less weird than you’d think. He doesn’t leave his room much.”

“Neither do you,” Warlock retorted.

Newt put on a smile. “Seems a good match.”

The ancient demon and the gen-Z 2019 Malibu Super Smash Bros. Tournament Champion made identical faces of disgust.

“ _ Not _ like that,” Crowley clarified, probably much harsher than he needed to.

“I wasn’t implying-”

“Plus, I think Warlock’s busy enough without me,” grumbled Crowley.

Newt latched onto this frontier of a conversation like barnacles to boats. “What with, Warlock?”

If his face wasn’t already apple-red from the heat and sun exposure, Warlock would be sporting a visible blush. “I might… actually be flirting with someone. Like, now. We’re texting. I’m not really sure if it counts as flirting. But.”

“If you can’t tell, Newton, he’s  _ very _ new to this. Dropped out of college and now moves two-dimensionally from his bedroom to work and back. Not many suitors itching to interrupt that line.”

“That’s so exciting!” exclaimed Newt, utterly ignoring Crowley. “Do you think it’ll turn into anything more?”

Warlock shrugged. “How do I know?” He paused. “Like, actually. Please help me. How do I know?”

“That can depend. In my experience, it’s been very… obvious. I hate calling it ‘fated’. Everyone calls it ‘fated’, including Anathema, even though she knows how much it bothers me. But if that’s what it was…” Newt swallowed uncomfortably. “But it can look like a lot of things. Asking if you’re busy at nights, that’s something. Or teasing, that’s another. Or, um…”

“Just being friendly. Really friendly. Doing things for you. Being grateful for you,” Crowley mused.

“Wouldn’t that make it hard to tell how he feels, though?”

The sunshine suddenly felt stifling. Crowley bit his lip, regretting already what he’d said. “Yes, Warlock. Yes it would.”

* * *

Evening spelled freedom, both from the company and from Crowley’s exasperation. He’d left Newt and Warlock in a huff of nerves, not wanting the opportunity to say more stupid things, and then he’d gone and spitted  _ “love is an illusion!”  _ instead of “goodbye”, and now he was desperately fleeing the scene, searching for the nearest bar.

Crowley was well aware, now more than ever, that his habits would be cause for concern if he were a human, as most therapists would tick off all the boxes on the “alcohol abuse” questionnaire if therapy was something he ever mustered the courage to do. He figured that, as a demon, he had plausible deniability on this front, for he literally  _ could  _ quit being drunk at any time. 

This was not one of those times. Still dripping and slightly shivery despite all of the expected conditions of summer, Crowley traversed the pool deck, feeling like a shipwrecked sailor, though he was certainly better dressed than one. He was vaguely aware of the background noise of waves and the scent of flowers under the chlorine-permeated air, but was so distraught that he couldn’t even think of going to look for the offending blooms, though perhaps exactly what he needed was a good vent session. It was highly unlikely that any such thing could be kept private here.

Finally, with a visible sigh of relief, he spotted lines of bottles and taps in the middle-distance, and made his way towards them. The only problems were the pool between him and the oasis, and the fact that the barstools were submerged in it. 

Crowley cursed whoever had invented the swim-up bar, and waded in, grimacing. He took a seat. No, this was not good. 

“Give me something that’ll warm me up.”

The bartender gave him a tense look. “You know, if you’re sick, you really shouldn’t be out here.”

“Not sick. Just. Distraught.”

“Okay, then,” she responded, and poured him something drinkable. It was a deep ochre with a gunmetal-grey straw, which tasted metallic over the peppery, cinnamon-scented liquid; the whiskey was pleasantly discernable. Crowley went ahead and ordered another.

The bar was busy, but nobody talked to him, and this was not the sort of place he’d want to strike up a conversation unprompted. To his right, Crowley spotted an empty white sun lounger, calling to him like the light at the end of the tunnel. He slid off the cold submerged barstool and made his way awkwardly through the pool to it, sipping the first of his drinks all the while. 

It warmed him up enough to where he didn’t entirely freeze as he climbed the stairs out and the sea breeze dried his skin. He collapsed onto the lounger. With his eyes closed and his ears picking up the rush of waves in the distance, it was easy to pretend he was on his beloved balcony.

“Erm- mind if I pull up a chair?” suggested a familiar voice. Crowley had heard that one at home, too, in his imagination.

“‘Course. Might as well,” he replied. That was decidedly not how he’d always started his side of the conversation in his sunsoaked daydreams.

A horrible screeching noise informed that Aziraphale was dragging a chair across the deck. The gentle sound of him sitting down was a blessed contrast. Suddenly, Crowley remembered that the angel couldn’t see his closed eyes. “How was salsa dancing?”

“Oh, lovely. Terribly lovely. It had been, say, seven decades since I did it last, and I won’t be waiting seven more to do it again.”

Crowley smiled despite himself. “Who’d you partner with?” This was not a wise choice of words.

“Well, I had to settle for one of Newt’s aunts.” There was no disguising the disappointment in his voice.

“Tragic.”

An awkward pause. “How was your afternoon?”

“Uneventful.” Besides the pining, of course.

“Really? You look very… red. Please tell me you’ve been wearing sunscreen, Crowley.”

“It’s not sunburn.” Crowley hadn’t looked at himself properly lately, but he had to acknowledge the twinge of satisfaction he got from knowing that Aziraphale  _ was.  _ He probably should not have given up the sunburn excuse so quickly.

The chair squeaked as Aziraphale fidgeted. “Is something wrong, Crowley?” His voice was soft as the breeze.

Crowley languidly allowed his head to droop to the side and his eyelids to fall open. He didn’t know what he had expected to see in front of him. His dearest friend in nothing but a white Speedo? A 1920s bathing costume that hadn’t seen the light of day since? Nothing at all?

None of the above, of course; Aziraphale was still in his dancing clothes and shiny white shoes. Crowley internally thanked him for it. “No. ‘Course nothing’s wrong. Just. You know.”

“Do I?”

Thankfully, Adam interrupted this potentially disastrous conversation by trotting over and situating himself on the ground between the angel and the demon. “Hey Crowley. Hey Aziraphale.”

“Where have you been all day?” asked Aziraphale.

“I thought he was with you,” Crowley butted in.

“And I with you,” replied Aziraphale.

“Wrong and wrong,” answered Adam. “I had an idea, and I spent today getting it all worked out. It’ll be  _ so  _ fun. You’ll see. Meet me out front of the resort at 7 sharp tomorrow morning.”

Aziraphale made a face Crowley was intimately familiar with; the stifling of obvious concern. “Will we need to bring anything?”

“Just yourselves.” A mischievous smirk lit up Adam’s face. He stood back up and left with the same excited energy he’d arrived with. 

“What do you imagine this is about?” Aziraphale wondered.

“Can’t imagine it’s anything good if we’re to be there at 7. Don’t know how in the world I’ll make that appointment.”

The angel smiled apologetically. “I’ll give you a wake up call.”


	4. Deadliest Catch

Aziraphale’s hand hovered over the phone. It had been there and back to his lap since approximately 5:42 AM, when the sun had come up over the crashing waves, beating through the wispy curtains into the suite.

He had never asked Crowley how long, on average, it took him to get ready in the morning. The topic had never come up in their long friendship. The only occasion for which Crowley arrived at particular times was brunch, and Aziraphale, out of respect, never scheduled those for earlier than noon. It was a mystery to him whether Crowley rolled out of bed two hours earlier or ten minutes prior on those cherished Sundays. Did it take the demon an hour to do his hair Like That, or had he miracled it to eternally look perfect ages ago? Did he slowly sip cup after cup of coffee in bed, watching the sun come up, or pound five doppio espressos in a line on the way out the door? He really ought to know these things. He knew Crowley. Or, he thought he did. And yet some intimacies eluded him.

The morning necessities of a demon, or even a human, Aziraphale admitted, escaped him. This was no mystery considering that the angel’s own Circadian rhythm had given up ages ago, and now the passing landmarks in Aziraphale’s river of time were one of two types: earl gray or cocoa. He’d finished his second cup of tea (reluctantly, as the in-room service was Twining’s) at 6 sharp. 

It was a ten minute walk from Crowley’s room to the resort lobby, but Aziraphale prudently added in a five minute buffer to account for the demon’s unreliable pace. The Keurig coffee machine standard in the rooms took about four minutes to produce 12 ounces. (Aziraphale had tested it, looked both ways, then poured it down the drain.) Plus two minutes for the wake-up call itself. At 6:39, Aziraphale dialed room 007. It rang thrice.

“Aziraphale?” 

Aziraphale wouldn’t have been able to recognize the word if it were not his own name, on account of the extreme mumbling on the other end of the line. “Yes, it’s me. It’s time to wake up. We’re to meet Adam in twenty minute’s time.”

“D’I have to?” Again, it was only Aziraphale’s deep familiarity with the voice that allowed him to parse the words.

“Yes, you have to.”

Crowley cleared his throat. “Did I ever tell you I hate mornings?”

“I believe you’ve told me that every morning we’ve spoken since mornings have been in existence.”

“‘Nd I’ll keep saying it ‘til the next apocalypse.”

Aziraphale swallowed. “It’s time to leave, Crowley. I’m hanging up.”

Crowley grumbled, and suddenly Aziraphale found the prospect of listening to Crowley complain about the sun more tolerable than usual. Which was nonsense. He would be seeing Crowley in fifteen minutes, if he’d done his calculations correctly.

Seeing Crowley  _ again _ . Like his hand over the phone, his mind had tarried back and forth between deciding to forget what happened the last night and never bring it up again, or to bullishly keep reminding itself about it, for reasons that could’ve gone one of two ways.

Because Aziraphale had not spent the entire night alone and undisturbed. Around one, he’d just gotten out of the bathtub (the thing was right in the middle of his suite, and enormous and clean and lovely, he might as well not let it go to waste) and was resting in a graceful white satin robe on a chaise looking out onto the sea. He had put on some Stravinsky, for old times’ sake. He’d long since stopped wondering what Adam’s plans for tomorrow were, for he actually had some measure of trust in the boy’s decision-making nowadays. He was even softening to the idea of welcoming Warlock into their little study group at the bookshop, if things got serious and he came to London. The angel, who had just engaged in several hours of impetuous self-care, was feeling very soft.

Even the knock on his door had been soft.

It must’ve been room service coming to pick up his dessert tray, Aziraphale had thought. He hadn’t really wanted to get up. But the next knock had been louder, and accompanied by his name, said in the manner of a devotion. Definitely not room service then. At least, he hoped not.

Aziraphale had risen from the chair, smoothed his robe, and opened the door gently, letting a salty breeze in, and also Crowley.

The demon was drunker than Aziraphale had seen him in… well, drunker than he’d been on this trip so far, and he had stumbled into Aziraphale’s arms, though something in the way his muscles tensed made Aziraphale wonder whether he’d have no trouble standing on his own. 

Infinite calculations determining whether this event would cause him undue emotional stress had clouded over Aziraphale’s mind, and when the storm parted, he had steeled himself and pushed Crowley back out the door, shutting it hard before he could second-guess the decision.

After that, he had turned the Stravinsky up to levels he’d normally worry about waking the neighbors at, and ordered another slice of dark, dark chocolate cake.

The reasons Aziraphale couldn’t decide what to do about this particular Happening were rooted in his memory of the London incident that had precipitated this whole mess. Aziraphale’s feelings had not changed one bit since then, and he still had not parsed what they were, exactly. Certainly he didn’t know what he wanted the future to hold. Either he had accepted his and Crowley’s asymmetric feelings and now wanted things to stay the way Crowley had wanted them to stay back then, or Crowley had now changed his mind, and Aziraphale had not, and miraculously Aziraphale was unhurt by his past folly and was now ready and willing to welcome Crowley’s newly requited feelings. It was all far too confusing to draw conclusions.

The prevailing wind inside his tempestuous mind was pointing towards pretending nothing had happened at all and soldiering on despite his heart’s feeble protests. Frankly, this was easier for him when he didn’t put words to the specific types of Feelings in his heart or Changes of his mind. It was the sort of dishonesty Aziraphale excelled at.

Denial carried him through the resort to Adam’s supplied meeting place. The morning was chillier than normal, if Cancun could ever be considered chilly.

He spotted Adam and Warlock across the bright, open lobby; the rest of the party who had arrived early chatted amongst themselves casually without a care in the world as to where this young guest who wasn’t related to the family in any way was taking them. Adam was just  _ like _ that. It wasn’t so much that he gave off a trustworthy air as it just always seemed like whatever he suggested was the  _ right thing to do _ . 

“Morning, Aziraphale,” Adam greeted him, with Warlock offering a small wave. “We’re just waiting on Newt and Crowley, and then we’ll be off.”

“I presume you won’t be telling us where we’re going until we’re there.”

“You’ll figure it out pretty quickly.” He nudged Warlock, who snickered at some inside joke they’d apparently already constructed. Adam’s eyes darted behind Aziraphale. “Well, there’s Newt.”

Aziraphale looked down at his watch; the second hand was accelerating towards seven AM. Newt greeted them and went to find Anathema in the small crowd of the wedding party, and Aziraphale began to worry.

“You haven’t seen Crowley this morning?” he asked.

Adam and Warlock exchanged a knowing glance. “We’d ask you the same thing.”

The angel opened his mouth automatically to protest, but his denial did not stretch so far as to ignore the fact that he actually  _ had _ seen Crowley this morning, though it had been a few hours earlier than useful. “Not in the last hour, no,” he lied by omission.

Warlock pulled out his phone, raising it to his ear. “I’ll call him.”

They heard the ring before they saw Crowley. “Ring” was a strong word. Warlock rolled his eyes. “Yeah, before you ask, his ringtone for me is Black Sabbath. He thinks it’s hilarious.”

Aziraphale made a mental note to ask Crowley what a ‘black Sabbath’ was, but he could tell he wouldn’t like it. 

“Sorry ‘m late,” said Crowley. “Couldn’t decide what to wear.”

This was obviously a joke, as Crowley was dressed as he ever was, but Aziraphale didn’t find it funny. His math had been off, and it frustrated him more than it had any right to. “Morning, angel,” Crowley drawled, a wink in his voice, like last night had gone exactly the way Crowley had wanted it to and not with him getting brusquely shut out. 

Aziraphale swallowed, reminding himself that this was not a good time to sort through what Crowley might’ve been intending to do at his doorstep at one AM, because Adam was corralling them into unmarked white vans, and he needed to be on his guard. 

Crowley and Aziraphale were shoved into the very back of one with a generic Pulsifer relative. The bench seat was sticky vinyl and Aziraphale privately worried about emerging from the van with Coca-Cola stains on his white linen trousers. The Pulsifer introduced himself as Trevor, and the journey commenced.

Trevor was a weedy boy, the kind puberty had forgotten about physically but had eagerly spoiled his attitude. Rightfully, he acted as a verbal barrier in the van’s back row. As they pulled out of the winding, lantern-dotted driveway and onto Fed. 307, the carefully-watered flora cultivated by the resort shifted to such wild expanse of green that individual plants were indistinguishable, at least to his untrained eyes. He wondered internally whether Crowley could name them all.

Aziraphale felt rather useless in the window seat, with both the scenery and the words on the passing billboards lost on him. He felt uncomfortably out of control over his corporeal form, with little authority over whether he impacted the hard plastic of the van interior or the occult flesh of Crowley’s thigh every time they hit the slightest bump. Worse, the middle seat didn’t have a seatbelt, or maybe it was broken, or God forbid Crowley had elected not to wear it, so each one of those times, Aziraphale imagined his limp body flying out the windscreen and into the stuffy heat, splaying on the road in a mess of bones, getting run over by one or more cars, and being left for the vultures. Aziraphale’s certain knowledge that Crowley would easily and painlessly survive any such endeavor did not at all lessen his instinct to grab hold of the demon and keep him safely in his seat.

The other occupants of the van didn’t help much. One of Anathema’s young cousins was chatting in Spanish with the driver up in the passenger’s seat, but there was little else for Aziraphale to eavesdrop on. Newt’s father had turned around to peer at the angel a couple times, but when Aziraphale had opened his mouth to ask if anything was the matter, he looked damningly forward again. 

It was, in other words, unpleasant. 

Aziraphale had been avoiding looking at his watch, thinking it would only make him feel worse about the dull ache of time, but once they started making more easterly turns, he checked it. It had been nearly an hour, and at this point there couldn’t be much land left between them and the sea. Not once had Crowley’s hand wandered over to his, or his head turned in Aziraphale’s direction. What could the demon have been thinking about? Long gone were the days that Aziraphale could guess.

At some point, though, all journeys must end, and Aziraphale had barely noticed them pulling into a parking space. Jumping out of the air-conditioned van into the Cancun heat was, somehow, a respite.

They were at a high-end marina, complete with cheery maritime flags and gleaming white yachts swaying along with the gentle turquoise waves. The aura of the wedding party shifted noticeably, even to Aziraphale, from a dour ochre to match the water under their feet. 

“Oh, this is nice, isn’t it, Crowley?” Aziraphale said, the perkiness in his voice clearer than he’d expected.

Crowley shrugged casually, but the jerkiness of the motion belied what Aziraphale recognized as anxiety. “Don’t really like boats.”

“Why is that?”

“‘S always colder over the water than on land.”

This seemed a pathetic excuse, and privately Aziraphale concluded that Crowley’s tension had more to do with their confined nature and lack of escape routes that didn’t involve swimming. Or, possibly, the fact that Crowley had narrowly missed an ill-fated trip on the Titanic by mixing up his first-class ticket with an opera voucher from 1745. 

“It will be fine,” Aziraphale said placidly and sighed, noticing Crowley’s tight-lipped expression of what might’ve been jealousy. “I confess that this isn’t my first choice for an excursion, either. Would have preferred, I don’t know, pottery, or bird-watching, or something. Bit of a landlubber, meself.”

This elicited a bark of laughter from Crowley, and Aziraphale figured that it was worth it to make Crowley laugh even if it was at his own expense. He was still sniggering when Adam called the party to attention, introducing them to their fishing guide for the day, a short sturdy man called Francisco. They were ushered onto a large vessel named  _ Ave Maria _ , which was laden with fishing gear and Prosecco in equal measure. Aziraphale held in a sigh. He knew that the dam holding back Crowley’s apparent anguish was weak, and that the cracks in it would widen and widen upon the generous dousing of Prosecco, and that Crowley himself would not like to see what came out.

Even if Aziraphale would like to see it. His current measure of feelings towards Crowley ( _ oh, so we’ve graduated to ‘feelings’ now? _ ) dictated that it was preferable to let his friend ( _ there we go _ ) remain ignorantly happy, dignity intact, than allow the maelstrom that would emerge play out. Especially at Anathema and Newt’s wedding. Their happily married love should be the only thing of note occurring. Aziraphale focused deeply upon that thought as he boarded the vessel.

At least there wouldn’t be any maritime maelstroms to contend with. The horizon shimmered silvery as the waves danced in the distance, but the sky above them was pristine. Aziraphale sat down next to the demon on the port side bench, nearest the chocolate-covered strawberries, and squinted towards the bow. He could rarely distinguish the chatter as they unmoored. The smooth rocking of the boat made Aziraphale feel as if he were being cradled by the beloved Earth itself.

Then, the sun hit the sea just right, and Aziraphale was reminded that even angel eyes can be blinded. “Oh, dear…” he said to no one in particular, or so he told himself. “How did I manage to forget my sunglasses?” he asked, a little louder this time so as to be heard over the roaring wind as the boat accelerated. 

As if he’d been waiting for this exact moment, Crowley turned to him, smirking deliriously. In one hand, he held a water bottle. In the other, a pair of his infinitely multiplying sunglasses.

Aziraphale couldn’t help but emit a nervous chuckle. “I’m grateful, but… they’re the same as yours. Won’t that look a little…”

“What will it look like, angel?”

Aziraphale couldn’t answer this terrifying question, so he snatched the sunglasses out of Crowley’s outstretched hand. He slid them onto his face, thinking about whether they had been worn before.

* * *

It was unclear to Aziraphale just how deep “deep sea fishing” was. It was about an hour from shore, but the ocean beneath them could’ve been fifty feet deep or five thousand and he would have no sense of it. And because Crowley had been sufficiently distracting the entire time, he had completely missed the fishing instruction part of the excursion, and Crowley had too, and now they were being handed wispy fiberglass rods and how were they supposed to catch fish with these weak little things?

Unfortunately, Aziraphale had been sent tumbling back to reality. There were indeed other people on the boat, and their focuses were not on the bride and groom, but on their star guest of unknown relation, who Aziraphale only now realized was wearing a khaki fishing vest and banana-print bucket hat in a way he understood was intended to be ironic.

“Biggest catch wins… a super-secret prize!” shouted Adam from his natural place at the center of the deck. 

Warlock smirked, holding up a hand to stage-whisper to Newt. “It’s not secret. He just doesn’t know what it is, yet.”

“It’ll be good,” Adam promised. “Trust me.”

They had dropped anchor over a spot of water that looked just the same as any other and separated into little groups. Crowley and Aziraphale, despite being the oldest in attendance, were again relegated to the metaphorical kids’ table with several of Anathema’s cousins. The way they giggled amongst themselves and glanced shiftily at the immortals in their midst told Aziraphale all he needed to know about how secrets were treated in the Device family. That, or they just thought it was funny to see two apparently middle-aged men in matching sunglasses making a show of standing no less than an arm’s length apart.

Aziraphale cleared his throat at Crowley, who was peering over the side of the boat and looking slightly green. “Have you ever been fishing before?”

“Me? Fishing?” He very casually put his free hand on his hip. “Tried once. Sometime around 50 BC. On the banks of the Tigris. With a wooden stick. Didn’t catch a ruddy thing. You?”

Aziraphale scratched his nose. “My experience with fish is primarily culinary.”

“I’ve got a great feeling about our chances, then.”

They exchanged hopeless glances, then looked around at everybody else in a weak attempt at copying. Newt already had his line in the water, but was sufficiently distracted by Anathema rubbing a gallon of sunscreen onto his neck and his father coaching loudly into his ear the importance of a wide stance. Meanwhile, Susan Pulsifer was hard at work getting her own coaching from Fransisco, albeit in a more discreet way. Carmen was taking photos of her assorted relatives, who looked like they might’ve actually been fishing before. And finally, Warlock and Adam were certainly much closer than an arm’s length away, nearly out of sight around the back of the boat, but at least they weren’t wearing matching sunglasses.

“I don’t think anyone is going to help us, Crowley.”

The demon’s sunglasses were still pointed towards Francisco, who was now very intimately showing Susan the proper body position from which to cast. “Doesn’t look like it.” He turned around. “Might as well just give it a go, then. Francisco there isn’t going to be much help, and neither are they.” He gestured to the preteen Devices, who were milling about with their phones, and kept saying the words “tick” and “tock” for reasons unfathomable to Aziraphale.

The angel nodded curtly and turned to the open ocean. He only now realized that dry land was a distant memory, and not even another boat interrupted the vast cerulean desert before them.

Timidly, he cast the line out.

Crowley burst out laughing. “Angel, that was about ten feet.”

“Is that… not enough?”

“Reel it back in.”

Aziraphale tried two, three, four times, with Crowley deeming each one insufficient based upon his vast wealth of fishing expertise, before Aziraphale grew annoyed and impatient. Thankfully, before he could endure any more embarrassment, a break was called for lunch.

It transpired that nobody had caught anything yet, and this seemed to amuse Francisco, who apparently made no guarantee upon the bounty of his expeditions. Nobody really seemed to mind, though, and as food was passed around, it was clear that everybody enjoyed eating ceviche much more than fishing for it. Except Crowley, but that couldn’t be helped. He had grown very quiet, and Aziraphale had given up on guessing why. Everybody else was having a splendid time. When the demon stood shakily to go get another water bottle, his seat was taken by Anathema.

“What’s taking you so long?” Her own sunglasses were pink-tinted and nearly transparent, and her eyes were bright with mischief.

Aziraphale startled, as if he hadn’t truly believed that she was sitting there until she spoke. “What? To catch something, you mean?”

“Yes,” she answered with a smirk.

“Anathema, this is my first time. You can’t expect-”

“Hold on,” she interrupted, holding up a manicured finger. “I don’t believe that for one second. You two look like you’ve been at this forever.”

“I was under the impression that I looked like a right novice.”

She rolled her eyes. “At  _ fishing _ , yes. But even I thought you were doing that part on purpose.”

Confusion buffeted Aziraphale like a hurricane, but it blew over quickly. In the eye of the storm was dread. “On purpose… to what?”

The knowing look in her eyes grew so smug that Aziraphale couldn’t stand to look at her. It was entirely an automatic motion when his eyes fled hers to land on Crowley, who was now chatting up Francisco. They were making a lot of hand gestures. Aziraphale had a bad feeling about what they were discussing.

Anathema patted him on the shoulder and stood. “Just a thought.” She then left him alone as the other side of the hurricane hit.

Damn her and her family’s prophecies. What was an angel to do? Continue stumbling headfirst back into the clutches he’d only just narrowly escaped from a few days ago, at the start of this blasted trip, when Crowley had deigned to start acting normal around him again? Surely Anathema had figured out what had happened to make them stop talking for so long. Crowley probably told Warlock years ago - laughed about it over drinks - it was much easier to share the details of an embarrassing situation when you weren’t the one who had initiated it.

But… perhaps there was something else Anathema knew. She had said “you two”. 

The angel shook his head.  _ No _ , Aziraphale,  _ no _ .

“What are you doing?” asked Crowley, skin looking rather ghastly in the sunlight.

“Erm… getting water out of my ears.”

Aziraphale was given a cruel chuckle for his crime of being far, far too lame a liar. “You go for a swim while I wasn’t looking?”

“No… some of it… splashed.”

“You’re being awfully weird today.”

_ You were being awfully weird last night. _

“Something you’re not telling me?”

_ I believe it’s  _ you _ who isn’t telling  _ me _. _

“I think the sun is getting to me,” admitted Aziraphale.

“Well, then, tell him not to. Francisco gave me some pointers and I think I’m poised to catch the big one. Think Adam’s got something good up his sleeve.”

“Oh? Like what?”

“The prize or the fishing tips?”

“Crowley, I don’t think Adam has a prize.”

Crowley laughed at this, too, and launched into a worryingly pedantic reiteration of Francisco’s tried-and-true fishing method; it seemed like a lot to condense into the two minutes he and Crowley had chatted, but Crowley seemed very certain. The lunch break fizzled out, and as the group went back to feigning interest in Adam’s excursion idea, Aziraphale watched his friend practice casting over and over until something clicked and peace settled in. 

Sitting, waiting together in the untempered sunshine and the relative silence of the open ocean suddenly became comfortable. Hot, but easy. Freeing. Aziraphale cursed the gratefulness he had first felt over Crowley lending him the sunglasses. He was protected from being blinded by the sun, yes. But with no innocent bystanders able to see his gaze, which stuck like a broken record, thoughts rotating blissfully, emptily, he was woefully in danger of being blinded by Crowley.

Now content with his setup, the demon reclined on the bench of the boat as if he lived there, the fingers of his left hand wandering playfully up and down the razor-thin line, feeling for life on the other side. Perhaps his hidden eyes were closed, perhaps he was looking for something, anything, in the void of blue above. He was happy, that much was clear.

Aziraphale, meanwhile, was musing. Musing about how he missed having so much time together that silence didn’t seem like a waste, but something to hold closely; proof that what they had wasn’t artifice or the means to an end. About how Crowley’s body, draped over the white fiberglass, somehow managed the same shape as it did over his favorite loveseat in the bookshop. About how Aziraphale himself would like to tug that line, wake the slumbering demon, stand over him, blot out all the light, fill the void. How blindness was not emptiness.

The feeling stuck like a pearl in his throat. He allowed himself this stillness, this contentment in his existence as a being of emotion alone, while the world did what it did without his help or his harm. If this was what he was now (what  _ they _ were now), he would learn to appreciate it. He would have to. Whatever hackneyed little voice was seething at him, telling him that this was painful and needed fixing, was wrong, damn it, just wrong. This was wonderful compared to the last twelve-hundred-ish days, which were all starting to run together so much that he couldn’t be sure of the exact number. 

In the cloudless sky, time obstinately refused to pass. Aziraphale slowly, tentatively, not wanting to lose what he had found, let his focus widen. He knew he was foolish. This  _ wasn’t _ some place of eternity, some other afterlife, some bottomless whirlpool of feelings alone that Aziraphale could throw himself into. This was one of the most beautiful places on one of the most beautiful planets, and he was surrounded by beautifully mortal people, and all of that had a power of its own. Aziraphale  _ knew _ that.

It was Crowley he needed to relearn. Crowley was the constant. He shouldn’t worry. He wouldn’t worry. Anathema had said not to worry.

“Aziraphale!” Anathema shouted.

The angel stood, right arm raising as if drawing a sword. While he’d been dozing, a ruckus had stirred on board, and it was all focused on Newt. He was bracing himself backwards, struggling with his reel as the rod curved into more and more acute arcs; it was a miracle it didn’t snap. Fifty feet out, something in the water thrashed, sending whitewater frothing into the empty air, but somehow, Newt seemed to be winning. Aziraphale joined the fray, not knowing what one does in this situation beyond standing and watching excitedly.

Newt had the cheers of twenty people on his side, and the catch slowly but surely drew closer and closer to them until they could see the shining blue side of the beast. Finally, it was close enough to bring aboard.

Aziraphale had never seen one alive and well in real life, but one of the perks of being an angel was an intrinsic knowledge of all God’s creatures, so he recognized it as a swordfish. Newt looked ecstatic and surprised in equal measure. Amidst the _wow_ s and the _congratulation_ s, he was stuttering out a floored response to his catch.

“I can’t believe it. Really can’t. No, I really mean it. This is my first time fishing. Ever. Anathema, the look on your face!”

He seemed just as joyous over this last part as he did about the fish, which had finally quit thrashing. The thing was easily several times his weight. His father took hold of the tail end, looking prouder than if Newt had just been elected Prime Minister. The swordfish, on the other hand, looked as if it was so used to being caught that it knew how to pose for pictures.

Everyone was then given a chance to touch the poor thing. Aziraphale even agreed, thinking as hard as he could how incredibly sorry he was for eating its kin, as if the fish could read minds via touch. It felt cold and supple, a refreshing wake-up plunge after his sweltering reverie.

“Crowley!” Warlock called. “You’re missing out. Come over here, you old bat. It’s cool, I promise."

Crowley looked tenser than his line. “No, no, really, it’s fine. I think… I think I might feel something on the end here.” He waved the rod demonstrably. “Gotta stay just in case.”

Warlock snorted. “You don’t. You’re just jealous.”

“Not jealous,” Crowley grumbled. It was strange to see the demon’s buttons being pushed, and stranger yet that Crowley spent time, by choice, with someone who seemed to delight in annoying him.

Aziraphale recognized that this was a time to take sides. He left the fish, congratulating Newt one last time, and returned to Crowley. “You know it’s all chance, dear.”

Crowley didn’t reply. The atmosphere on the boat quieted, the swordfish returned to its home, and Francisco announced that they had half an hour left anchored here before they’d begin the slow sunset cruise back to shore. The waves in the distance became more intriguing to watch than Crowley’s souring mood, but for some reason, Aziraphale didn’t find the prospect of leaving him to go chat up somebody else any more preferable. As they waited, time itself was, once again, in control. 

Until, quite suddenly, there was a sound like a power drill, and Crowley jumped up, catching the reel as it fought wildly to unspool. His hand found purchase on it, and his grip on the rod was secure, but he struggled to keep himself upright. Aziraphale watched like a petrified bystander as Crowley stumbled towards the side of the boat, cursing loudly to himself, and it became horribly clear that he was going to be dragged in.

It was all happening too quickly, and there was nothing anybody could do about it, and with a wretched splash, he was gone.

Some deeper protective instinct in Aziraphale finally woke and he stepped up on the bench, plugged his nose, and followed the demon into the blue. 


	5. The Touch Of Your Hand.

There is a common misconception about demons. Well, there are several, but there is really only one that could apply to a demon floundering in the Atlantic because he was trying to impress an angel with his wicked fishing skills, simply because such a situation was so absurd that nobody had thought to come up with conceptions about it in the first place.

The one currently pertinent to Crowley is that demons live life with no regrets (sometimes fashioned ‘ragrets’ by the younger ones). That they ping-pong through mortals’ lives inflicting damage as they please, with nary a care about any long-term consequences; that they are agents of chaos and strife alone. It’s certainly been said by many that demons invented the term ‘YOLO’. 

In reality, there are many situations which may give rise to a demon feeling this most inconvenient regret. Not corrupting someone enough before their unexpected death, well, that was the main one. But also - a bad haircut, a penchant for embroidered vests in the ‘70s, a string of sleepless nights with Oscar Wilde. 

Crowley may have been woefully deficient in the most common demon regrets, but he more than made up for it in the frequency and severity of all the other ones. Today, he had a new one to add to the list.

“‘M fine. Seriously.” He coughed out more seawater. “No. Didn’t hurt myself, swear.” It burned briny in his nose. “Yes. I told you. Fine.”

He was back on the boat, dripping wet, and with the way everyone ( _ no, not bloody everyone, just Aziraphale, you liar _ ) was looking at him, he halfway wished he’d sunk to the bottom of the nearest trench and lived life as an eel for a while. Find a nice crevice to wiggle into, flirt with the other eels, maybe teach them a little English or something. But no. He’d not even been given the option. The damned angel was being treated as a  _ hero _ , and Crowley a damsel.

If Crowley was going to be a damsel, he wanted it to be in  _ private _ , thanks. It was dearly bothersome that Aziraphale was getting all of this attention and gratefulness from everybody else, and enjoying it, no less! For the briefest moment, Crowley had considered playing this off like they all wanted it to be played. Like it was a funny accident. If he wanted to, he had every right to retell the false story about how big the fish was, how he was  _ this _ close to getting it, etc., etc. He reserved that right. 

He also reserved the right to be the immature trash he knew he was, and that was the more realistic option. Sulking suited his face nicely.

Once he’d been deemed safe enough to leave alone, it was time to go back to shore and he fled for the stern, where it was loud and smelled of petrol and there wasn’t anywhere to sit. He leaned on the now-folded up ladder Aziraphale had used to pull him out of the sea, not even needing to try to look broody. The wind whipped his wet hair and the sea showered his sunglasses with minute prisms, but the blur was preferable to being chaperoned.

It took Aziraphale but a moment to show his face. He was dripping wet, too, a white towel wrapped around his waist, obscuring the ridiculous white-linen pants underneath that he still wore. The periwinkle flowers on his Hawaiian shirt wept. Only his hair showed signs of drying, each white curl springing up from his head independently like so many newborn sprouts.

“I’m very sorry about, um…”

“About my fish?”

“Yes, about your fish.”

“There was never a fish.”

“There wasn’t?”

Crowley smiled despite himself. Aziraphale’s gullibility never got old. “Well, there was. But. It didn’t come of its own accord.”

“You-”

“Where do miracled fishes come from, anyway?”

Aziraphale’s expression may have hardened, but it was so much harder to tell under the sunglasses Crowley had given him. He had never appreciated just how expressive the angel’s eyes were. “I’d never thought to ask,” Aziraphale said placatingly.

“Guess I should’ve started smaller, eh?”

“Crowley,” Aziraphale said. “Can you… can you please be honest with me?”

“Can’t guarantee anything.”

“That isn’t funny.” He paused. “ _ Why _ did you… do all of that?”

Crowley sighed. This honesty thing, it wasn’t easy. “I’ll admit that it wasn’t for the prize, alright.”

He wished he could see the dawn of understanding in Aziraphale’s eyes, because he knew it was there, he knew it was coming, creeping up on him, threatening all that he’d built up. This careful, casual, affected thing he’d been passing off as personality these days. These years. This wretched veil that had turned so opaque, he couldn’t even tell what was underneath anymore.

Aziraphale’s voice was dusky. “What are you hiding, Crowley?”

Each word hit him like a shot of absinthe, spinning his mind, polluting his composure, bleeding out the black. He pressed his eyes closed, wishing it to go away. What would be left once he was washed clean?

“I’m-”

“I’m here for you, Crowley.” The angel placed his hand on Crowley’s, still gripping the boat’s ladder hard. It was so warm, so warm compared to the hard aluminium, and sensitized as Crowley was, it burned.

“What of me are you here for?”

“All of it. You know that.”

“What about the parts you don’t know?”

The angel smiled as if he  _ did _ know, he knew it all, he had known it all along. “If there’s something I haven’t learned after this long, then I trust that it’s something that’s yours and yours alone.”

Crowley shook his head. “There’s nothing left that’s all mine. That’s the point, innit?”

“I’m afraid I’m not… entirely sure what you mean, but I’ll take your word for it.” 

The demon suddenly found that he was terrified for Aziraphale to take his word for it, to not pry, to make Crowley approach  _ him _ with what he needed to say rather than be asked about it. It was so much easier to divulge the answer to an asked question than to bring it up unbidden. “Don’t,” he whispered, the word sticking out among the white noise.   


“Don’t what?”

“Don’t let it go. Don’t make me sit on this any longer. Don’t make me burden you if you don’t want to be burdened.”

The roar of the engine seemed much louder as Crowley waited, watching for Aziraphale’s lips to begin moving, to give him what he needed or confirm that there was no such thing.

Then, the sun touched the land, which Crowley had only just realized had shown itself. Here, facing the east, they were thrown into shadow. Aziraphale took off the sunglasses Crowley had given him. Crowley mirrored the action. The world looked different with clear eyes.

“We’re almost back, Crowley.”

“ _ So? _ ” he challenged. “What changes then?”

“That’s not what I mean, and you know that. But for one,” the angel swallowed, glancing behind himself for a split second before thinking the better of it, “we can be alone. I don’t believe this is a conversation you would like to be eavesdropped upon for. And… you don’t need to rush this, Crowley. I’m not going anywhere.” 

Crowley didn’t point out the lie. Newt and Anathema got married in two days. Their return tickets, bound for opposite directions, had been booked without the slightest thought as to whether they should be ‘one-way’ or ‘roundtrip’. 

If Aziraphale had known he was lying, though, it didn’t show. “We can wait, Crowley.”

“Don’t you think we’ve waited long enough already?”

Aziraphale paused, and there was a flicker in his eyes that Crowley could see even in the fading light. Not understanding, nothing so discrete. Something more like the first wisps of wishing. Like he hadn’t yet figured out what Crowley was speaking of, precisely, who could blame him, but like there had been enough meaning in his long string of idiocies to give Aziraphale hope. 

Hope… for what?

It was gone. “Yes. You’re quite right. But what’s another hour, then?”

Crowley dipped his head, trying to recalibrate his overused sense of vision by staring into the depths of his seawater-soaked black socks. “I’ll take that compromise.”

Before he’d finished uttering that last word, soft fingers on his chin tipped his face back up. This close, Aziraphale was like the rising sun. “You have nothing to be afraid of, Crowley.”

* * *

The hour turned into three, but somewhere along the line, the waiting lost its maddening shimmer. Once more, it was effortless, not because it was enjoyable, but because it was familiar. Aziraphale had been right. 

And the prize Adam had to offer was shit. A massive stuffed shark, really, how was Newt going to get that back on the plane?

The ruse of professional friendship Aziraphale and Crowley had instigated towards everybody else was up. Shamelessly they had declined to join them for dinner after they got back, saying they were going to order room service instead, and didn’t even bother with claiming some weak excuse about being overly tired or needing emotional rest after the day’s excitement. If people were going to make assumptions, and Crowley knew that at least two of them were, then so be it. In a wicked way, a way that he would have resented just a few days ago, Crowley invited the assumption-making.

Crowley returned to his room to change; it was obvious that Aziraphale’s would be the better place to spend a quiet evening. The children above him were jumping and laughing. The vibrations gave him a headache.

It had been unclear whether this room-service thing was a date. Crowley was the kind of pessimist who didn’t take things sitting down, so he prepared for the worst. Took a hot shower, washed his hair, had more coffee, donned his best trousers (leather), and left the top button of his indigo shirt undone. He looked in the mirror. If he looked sleep-deprived, which he was, it didn’t show. The sunglasses were the punctuation mark on a very well-organized sentence.

His walk to Aziraphale’s room was a quiet one. Unintentionally, he walked faster than usual. He forced his memories of last night down like bile. He was trying very hard to regain some dignity.

When he showed up at Aziraphale’s door, it was with an invitation, and his self-assured knocking proved it. 

“Good evening,” greeted Aziraphale.

“Hi again.”

“Come in; I’m famished. Do you want me to order you anything?”

This was the kind of pleasantry that belied Aziraphale’s nerves, an affectation usually reserved for other angels. 

“I’ll have whatever you’re having.”

“I’ll order extra, then.” He picked up the beige hotel phone and dialed.

Crowley decided not to burst the angel’s bubble by insisting that he really didn’t need to do that, Crowley really wasn’t hungry, and instead his eyes darted around the room, searching for the most innocuous place to put himself. This was difficult, because he kept thinking about the  _ least _ innocuous places to put himself. 

He chose a single chair. He  _ knew _ that Aziraphale would want to turn this into a therapy session. Intense psychoanalyzing was the very last thing Crowley wanted out of this night, or really anytime at all. What he’d said on the boat had fizzled out. Aziraphale’s interpretation, however valid, was  _ wrong _ . Crowley was fine, save one tiny little thing.

Aziraphale hung up and sat stiffly on the chair opposite Crowley’s. “So.” He didn’t even draw out the word as if trying to come up with something to say. It was not a placeholder sound. It was a statement of fact, a final decision that whatever came next was up to Crowley.

“Are you worried about me, Aziraphale?” Crowley spoke clearly, in the manner of a well-rehearsed performance, only he wasn’t sure when exactly the rehearsals had taken place.

The angel folded his hands. Crowley wondered whether his parts had been rehearsed, too, and whether they’d been reading from the same script. “Well, you’ve certainly given me reason to be.”

“Would you believe me if I said the reason for all this was actually rather simple?”

“I would like to hear you try.”

Crowley swung his legs up over the arm of the chair. He held his breath for a moment, then released it in a splatter of words. “I missed you.”

Aziraphale’s composure slipped and his eyes narrowed. “Crowley, I missed you too. I thought we’d established that.”

“No, like. I really did. Really. This?” he offered, motioning to his general sense of being, “this is me doing better than I have since I left. This is better than I hoped for on a good day.”

“But you had Warlock-”

“Don’t ‘but’ me.” He looked Aziraphale right in the eye, as if the angel could tell that he hadn’t been in the first place. “Did you order any wine?”

“I didn’t think it would be appropriate.”

“You were wrong.” Crowley abandoned the chair to pick up the phone on the bedside table. “Yes, ‘ello, us again, can you add a couple bottles of wine to our order? Whatever you like. Give us something fun.”

He hung up. Aziraphale hadn’t moved. He looked dazed.

Crowley swung back around, suddenly alight, putting his hands on the back of Aziraphale’s chair and smiling. It  _ had  _ been easy, hadn’t it? That was all there was. The confession had been undeniably fruitful. 

“Relax, angel. I’m fine, now. Swear it. It’s not wine of sadness and longing,” that last adjective had been a tad over-descriptive, “it’s celebration. You told me you weren’t going anywhere. This is me believing you.”

Aziraphale turned his head to face Crowley’s. It took Crowley a moment to read his expression. Then he remembered where he had last seen it. In the bookshop, right before the angel had asked if Crowley wanted to kiss him. Timid joy.

“I know you won’t let me down,” Crowley confided.

The timidness was gone. “Thank you, Crowley. I think I hear the door.”

It transpired that Aziraphale had ordered enough food not only for him and Crowley, but for the whole wedding party, if they had deigned to cram themselves into a honeymoon suite. It actually looked pretty good, too, and Crowley decided to prove his newfound devotion to friendship and togetherness by consuming some of it. To wash down the wine, of course.

The room, fortunately, had a dining table and it was small and round and made Crowley feel like he was back home, back at the Ritz, with nothing like a worry in the world and no doubt in the persuasion of the friend at his side. The food nearly covered it, but suddenly, nothing seemed like a problem. 

The wine picked out for them wasn’t very good, but that was probably only because it was being served to two of the most bougie wine-drinkers to ever step foot out of France. Conversation returned to normal, like  _ do you think anything happened between Francisco and Susan?  _ and potential music selections for Anathema and Newt’s first dance. 

“D’you think they’ll take requests? During the reception, I’mean.”

“Song requests?”

“You should ask them to play like… some Mozart or something. Can you imagine.”

“I  _ can _ imagine. I officiated his wedding, you know.”

“You did not.”

Aziraphale giggled; the wine had done splendidly. “No. I didn’t. Moreover,  _ nobody _ should ever suggest Mozart for a wedding. A nice waltz, of course, but never-” the angel stopped suddenly. “Is that… hissing I hear?”

Crowley bit his lip. “Erm… maybe.”

“Oh, goodness… do you think a snake got in? Did we leave a window open?”

“I-I don’t think so.”

“Then what is it?”

Somehow, this was more difficult to admit than anything else Crowley had divulged on this most revealing of nights. “My phone.”

“Your ringtone is  _ hissing _ ?”

“It’s funny, innit?”

“Crowley, what do the people around you think when it goes off?”

The phone hissed again and Crowley shrugged. “I haven’t really gone out much these past few years.”

He knew that Aziraphale wanted to say something in protest, but the angel swallowed it down. “Well, do go on and open it.”

“No, no, it’s fine, I’ll just turn it on vibrate.”

“What if it’s important?”

The chances of it being something important were less than zero, but Crowley complied anyway. The bright light of the screen illuminated that which the dimmed chandelier above the dining table did not.

**9:56pm**

**hi crowey ;)**

**wyd tonight**

“It’s nothing,” Crowley insisted. 

**9:57pm**

**we saw you and aziraphale today**

**on the boat**

**u looked like u were having a good time.**

“Is everything alright, Crowley?”

**9:57pm**

**just sayin. adam and I are going out tonight. we thought you could use a little fun. meet us outside the club at 11?**

“It’s just Warlock. He… he wants us to go out with him and Adam tonight. But, like, we can totally say no. I’ll tell him you said no, actually.” He put the phone on the table. “I mean, I dunno what you’d planned to do tonight. Whether you wanted me to… to…”

The phone hissed once more before Crowley could decide between saying ‘to stay’ or ‘to leave’.

Aziraphale’s wandering eyes glanced to the lit screen. Aziraphale was a very fast reader. “Crowley… what does Warlock know about the nature of our…” Crowley had a very strong feeling that Aziraphale was in a similar place he’d just been in with his own battle being between ‘relationship’ and ‘friendship’.

“I didn’t tell him anything. What did that little sea urchin say?”

**9:59pm**

**your boyfriend could use a little loosening up. just saying.**

The temperature in the room grew ten degrees hotter from the strength of Aziraphale and Crowley’s blushes alone. Then, Aziraphale laughed. “He’s not entirely wrong.”

The look on Crowley’s face prompted an explanation.

“About me needing some ‘loosening up’. Assuming Warlock wasn’t referring to… somebody else.”

Crowley’s stomach lurched. “No. ‘Course not. And. Erm. You know, him being ‘round Adam. And - you know - I’m not entirely happy with our efforts to keep them apart, we’ve been doing an abysmal job. I think he’s probably just in… just in that mindset.” He began to trail off as his thoughts of Warlock dissolved, save for the word ‘boyfriend’ on the phone screen, bold as brass, pulling his gaze like a black hole. “Probably didn’t mean any of it.”

“Crowley?” Aziraphale asked, rousing the demon from the beginnings of a very opaque stupor. “I think we should go. And you should stop worrying about what Warlock says.”

“He’s wrong, though,” Crowley blurted. He shook his head quickly and took a steadying gulp of wine. He’d started this sentiment, and he could not fail to finish it, as whatever Aziraphale would guess he was about to say would likely be much worse than the real thing. The look in his eyes said as much. “‘Boyfriend’ is such… it’s such a limiting, temporal word, innit? That’s not… not what we are. Or what I want us to be.” 

“What would you call it, then?” Aziraphale asked quietly. 

Crowley sighed, wishing he had a nice, tidy answer. 

A smile split Aziraphale’s face, and he put his hand over Crowley’s on the table. “I don’t know, either. And I would have been… well, a tad bit let down if you had managed to find a word. You’re right, Crowley, ‘boyfriend’ isn’t it, but… there’s something. More. We are  _ more _ .”

_ We are _ . ‘Are’. Not ‘were’. Or ‘will be’. 

Aziraphale squeezed Crowley’s hand once, then stood and pushed in his chair neatly. “Now, if you’ll excuse me. I need to attempt to find something appropriate to go out dancing in around people a twentieth of my age.”

Once again, the angel pulled Crowley out of the hole he was now very accustomed to digging, and Crowley chuckled appreciatively; he would have found himself very incapable of following up Aziraphale’s declaration. “I’d like to see you try.”

“It’ll be a challenge, I admit. I haven’t been dancing in… well, I haven’t been dancing outside of a ballroom studio in… as long as I care to admit. May I meet you there?”

Crowley assented, grateful for the chance to do something he had chosen not to do for quite some time, which was to dress for maximum temptation. He left Aziraphale, contentment now smoothing over his frayed nerves, a bounce rather than a sway in his step as he returned to his room, internally congratulating himself for packing eyeliner on a whim.

* * *

The dark air buzzed outside the resort’s club, aptly named Infierno, like the music thumping inside was emitting more than just sound waves. Bachelorette parties shimmied in, older folks who were club-curious were heading back to their rooms, and an angel stood guard outside by a lamppost. The glass globe burned a devilish crimson and the post was forked at the top. The theming was particularly overt.

The angel hadn’t looked at the time, and in fact had left his pocketwatch in the room. In all likelihood, he had departed earlier than he had needed to, and he didn’t mind this. Something about waiting made him comfortable. The alternative was risking lateness, which would entail making somebody else wait, someone who might not have the same feeling about it. Which was much worse.

It had not been as hard as he had feared to determine what to wear. As he’d watched Crowley making for the door earlier, the answer had presented itself to him shamelessly. He had then gone to rummage through his luggage, grateful for the stroke of wild hope that had washed over him as he’d packed back in London.

This was how he found himself poised outside a Hell-themed nightclub dressed like Crowley.

Well, sort of. Crowley, who had just strolled on up, looking, for once, like the actual canonical demon he was, would probably disagree. “What are you… where did you even find those, Aziraphale?”

He motioned vaguely downwards at Aziraphale’s trousers, which were  _ grey _ (unusual in itself) and  _ plaid _ , with tiny lines of red criss-crossing the circumference of his thighs. 

“I’m sure you’d like to find out,” replied Aziraphale, accidentally slathering his words in tonal sauciness. 

“Mm… think I would.”

Aziraphale focused very hard on clearing his mind, because he was in a public place, and he was  _ flirting _ , albeit unconsciously, and this was not a good combination. “Ahem. Anyway. Shall we?” Aziraphale after-you’d Crowley into the club.

“Don’t you want to wait for Warlock ‘n Adam?”

“Oh,” Aziraphale remembered. Crowley was dressed in a lot of leather, which must be dreadfully uncomfortable in the humid Cancun air, and this quagmire was currently occupying all of Aziraphale’s synapses. “Right.”

One could barely hear the hissing over the music, but somehow Crowley either did, or else felt the vibration underneath the thumping base, because he pulled out his phone. “They’re already inside.” 

Crowley started for the door again, but Aziraphale stopped him, having just gotten a hold on his own wandering thoughts. “Wait. I just want to get something straight.”

“You sure about that?”

Aziraphale almost rolled his eyes; couldn’t the flirting (if that’s what it was) wait two more seconds? “By going in there, are we potentially showing approval of their ‘relationship’?”

“How would we be doing that?” Crowley rebuffed. “Not that I approve,” he quickly added.

As Aziraphale hesitated, the music changed. He didn’t recognize the new song, hardly a shocker, but it arrested his thoughts, interrupting his neurons that were worriedly shooting into ‘panic’ receptors and ushering them instead toward ‘ _ hey _ , Crowley, I think we ought to go inside and dance and hopefully it will be dark enough that you won’t be able to see me looking. Or you will. But only if you want to’. 

“Never mind,” Aziraphale blurted. “It’s not really about them, is it? We’re just here to… to have a good time.”

Crowley responded only with a wicked grin, and pulled Aziraphale in by the hand.

* * *

Infierno was a layman’s idea of Hell. All flashy lighting made to look like dancing flames and walls of shiny black and a bar in the shape of a coffin. Even the bartenders wore little devil horns with their leather uniforms. It was cute. It made Hell look fun.

As the only being present with any verifiable, firsthand knowledge of Hell, Crowley found the whole thing hilarious. But that may have just been the good mood talking, and the way he noticed how Aziraphale looked around the place with curiosity.

“It’s extremely accurate,” Crowley commented.

“Really?”

“Oh, yeah. Especially the barstools made out of bones, sat in those several times. They’re only in the most exclusive circles of Hell, though. Reserved for the high-rollers. Less comfortable than you’d think.”

“You’re joking.” Aziraphale didn’t look nearly as incredulous as he sounded.

Crowley shrugged mysteriously as they pushed through the crowds of people moving drunkenly to what they, somehow, considered “music”. Adam and Warlock seemed to have scarpered off, but at this point, it was probably a blessing. When they reached the bar, Crowley offered the angel a smile. “You know, Aziraphale, I’d really rather you never find out what Hell looks like.”

Aziraphale hesitated, unsure whether Crowley was being nonchalant. “I’m sorry to burst your bubble, dear, but I do have to remind you that I’ve been.”

“Oh. Yeah.” Crowley snapped his fingers at a bartender, which was the sort of rude, pompous thing he wouldn’t normally do, but it was better than letting this conversation continue. “What d’you want, Aziraphale?”

“You know me, I’m happy with anything.” It was clear he was still caught off-guard.

On a devious whim, perhaps inspired (however reluctantly) by the decor, Crowley turned to the bartender. Unsurprisingly, they didn’t look overly pleased with him, but at least there weren’t any flies buzzing around their head. “Two cinnamon whiskies. Doubles.”

As they poured, Crowley made a point to tip extra well.

“Cheers,” he said, handing one of the blood-hued glasses to Aziraphale. “To getting stood up by two teenagers.”

“Oh-” Aziraphale raised his glass. “I’d forgotten already. Cheers.”

Unable to contain his smirk, Crowley waited to take his shot until Aziraphale began to drink, a timid little sip that made him cough, scrunch up his nose in the most ungenial fashion, and try to form words as Crowley burst out laughing.

“What  _ is  _ this?” the angel argued.

“Drink o’the devil, course,” Crowley managed to say through fits of giggles. “I thought you’d like it! Thought you loved cinnamon!”

“In tea and biscuits!”

“Not in alcohol? Not like the burn of Hell?” Crowley said. “Watch and learn, angel.” In one fell swoop, he downed the amber liquid and stuck out his tongue. 

Aziraphale seemed to suddenly remember what they were there for, and a smile emerged from his tight lips. “If you insist…” 

He followed suit, and though he didn’t seem to enjoy it as much as Crowley did, he managed to swallow, and Crowley ordered another. And then another, and then a few vodka cranberries, and then Aziraphale was pulling him by the arm onto the dance floor, and the music suddenly felt ten times louder because he couldn’t hear what Aziraphale was saying, and somehow, that didn’t matter. Only what he saw mattered. Only what he felt, what the thumping beat made him feel, mattered.

Everything seemed to occur during flashes of light. In darkness, none of this existed. All was red and heat.

Aziraphale wasn’t dancing, he wasn’t moving, he was a new picture, a new painting, a new masterpiece every second as the strobe flashed.

And every second, a little closer. Every second, he made up more of the demon’s overburdened perception. The crimson flashes set his white curls aflame. 

Breathing hard, suddenly, Crowley fumbled to take his sunglasses off. He couldn’t get enough, enough air, enough space, enough sanity. And when they were off, he realized that “enough” was not what he needed. He had too much. He needed to give it away.

He took Aziraphale’s neck in his hand. Blindly, thoughtlessly, their lips met.

Hell had nothing on Aziraphale.


	6. Once More, With Feeling.

If there existed such thing as the opposite of a hangover, Aziraphale had it.

“I’ll get it,” Crowley said, shooting a quick smirk in Aziraphale’s direction, when a gentle knock on the door signaled the arrival of breakfast.

Aziraphale sighed and sunk deeper into the blankets. Beds were really quite comfortable things, he thought. He made a mental note to use them more often, sleep be damned.

The ever-lovely and thoughtful resort staff had included breakfast-in-bed trays with the delivery. Crowley wheeled the well-laden room service cart towards Aziraphale, and Aziraphale decided that before his eyes was the single loveliest image in the world. 

The look on Crowley’s face, however, was slightly confused. “Erm. W’do you want first?”

“Oh, whichever. Surprise me,” Aziraphale replied, and he was handed a cheesy omelette, a plate of strawberry-filled crepes, and a jug of orange juice. Crowley set up the trays with the confidence of someone who had never once waited a table, but had seen others do it countless times.

He settled down next to the angel with naught but a full two-liter carafe of coffee and a neat white mug.

“What’s today?” he asked as he haphazardly poured the steaming black liquid.

“I believe it’s wine and painting. You know, where they give you the example and show you how to replicate it. And everybody laughs at how dreadful each other’s ‘beach at sunset’ or ‘rose garden’ or whatnot looks.”

Crowley considered this for a moment. “Rose garden, eh? How do they come up with the ideas, anyway? Just pick whatever’s easiest for first-timers?”

“Maybe,” Aziraphale replied, smiling and cocking his head to the side. “If you could choose, and, of course, had the ability to back it up, what would you paint?”

The demon drained his coffee mug and refilled it before answering. “It’s far too early for me to be answering that sort of question.”

Aziraphale opened his mouth to implore the demon to try an answer anyway, but Crowley interrupted him. “Don’t think I’d be very good at it. Not the painting itself, mind you, but… the idea of capturing something in time. Picking something to keep and look at every day for the rest of eternity.”

The restless motion of the sea drew Aziraphale’s eyes and mind away from breakfast. He hadn’t drawn the curtains last night, and had watched out the windows while he was the only one awake in the room. And yet, somehow, it looked different. “I hope you give yourself credit for how wise you are, Crowley.”

He saw Crowley smile to himself out of the corner of his eye and pour more coffee. “I hope  _ you  _ give yourself credit for how well you draw it out of me.”

There was nothing for Aziraphale to add that would improve upon this sentiment, so he settled for the cheesy crepes instead. He was instilled with quiet contentment, and more so than he had seen in ages, he could tell that Crowley was, finally, too. 

“What time’s this painting thing, anyway?” Crowley asked nonchalantly, but Aziraphale could hear the bolstered undercurrent of his voice.

“Twelve, I believe.”

Crowley slipped out of bed, placing his coffee back onto the cart. The carafe was opaque white, but seemed much lighter than before. “Can I meet you there?”

“Of course, dear.”

“Doesn’t mean I’m ditching you or anything.”

“I didn’t think you were.”

“It’s not like…” Crowley pondered how to express his thoughts. That leaving didn’t mean  _ leaving _ anymore. He then remembered what he had concluded about being honest with Aziraphale. “I trust you enough to be apart from you, and all that. Being alone. It doesn’t scare me so much anymore.”

Aziraphale looked down; his eyelashes fluttered a little like floodgates about to burst. “ _ Alone _ doesn’t mean alone. Independence doesn’t mean loneliness. I’ll make sure of that for you.”

Suddenly, Crowley found it very hard to swallow. “I’ll just… just see you soon.” He made to leave, then thought better of it, turning to face Aziraphale once more. “And I you.”

* * *

It was a relaxed sort of morning. Crowley rolled up at 12:05. He considered it as being on-time because he had brought his own wine. 

The painting they were replicating was of a macaw in the trees. Crowley’s trees were nearly photorealistic but the macaw was about a quarter the size it was supposed to be and left a lot to the imagination. Aziraphale hadn’t progressed past a few brushstrokes at the end of the hour; his eyes were elsewhere, and his glass was never full. 

When everybody else gathered to gawk at Art’s painting, which was more vibrant and detailed than the model, the angel and demon exchanged a quick glance before deciding that, this time, they would go and gawk too.

* * *

It was an anxious sort of afternoon. From the moment he saw it on Anathema’s itinerary weeks ago, Aziraphale knew the baking class was going to be a problem. Completely devoid of any past shows of prowess, he had acquired the reputation of being excellent at  _ everything _ related to food, not just eating it. But why cook it yourself when London was so chock-full of people who wanted to do it for you?   


He had never tried to keep this secret, but he had never corrected anyone mistaken on the matter either. Consequently, he had an audience for his brave attempt at tiramisu. 

His saving grace was the sound of Crowley’s laugh when the angel’s mascarpone completely lost the will to live and oozed off the plate onto his shoes.

* * *

It was an active sort of evening. The setting sun got in everybody’s eyes except Crowley’s as the volleyball soared back and forth over the net. Crowley wasn’t normally much for sports, but this gave him an advantage. He was also very determined to show Aziraphale, who was on the opposing team, that he was good at something besides moping. He wasn’t entirely sure he succeeded.

When his team didn’t win, he didn’t chalk it up to Newt being a klutz, or the sand being too hot. He didn’t even blame it on Aziraphale being overly distracting in his borrowed tank top.

And when he accused the angel of cheating, and received a wink in return, his competitiveness melted away like the post-match ice cream they shared.

* * *

It wasn’t any  _ sort _ of midnight. It was simply midnight.

And the shell collecting wasn’t an  _ activity _ , per se. This late, there was nobody else around. They were at least a mile away from the resort, and with only a crescent moon illuminating their path, Crowley had left his sunglasses in the room. The air was just cool enough to where a glimpse of warmth - a light jacket, a brush of hands, a blush - was a welcome treat. 

“Horseshoe crabs,” wondered Crowley. 

“Hmm?”

“Leave those big shells.”

Aziraphale looked backward, worried. “Oh, no… did I step on one?”

Crowley slowed his already tectonic pace, feeling each grain of sand under his feet. “They’re old, aren’t they? Old as us. Some say older than us.”

“In a sense, I suppose,” murmured Aziraphale. He shivered a little from the breeze.

“And they’re still going. Survived mass extinction events, loads of ‘em. And you look at them. Haven’t changed one bit. Still muddy grey and ugly.”

The angel chuckled. “That’s just the shell.”

Crowley nodded vigorously. “Yeah. Right. Even uglier underneath, all those legs; slimy spiders. But-”

“They’re still here.”

“Exactly. Everywhere, really.”

A particularly intact abalone shell caught Aziraphale’s eye and he stopped to pick it up. He peered inside, squinting at the way the moonlight caught the nacre sheen. With nobody inside of it, the sight of the hidden underside felt invasive in a good way. If there was such a thing. 

“I admire it.”

“The longevity?” Aziraphale asked.

“Don’t fix it if it isn’t broken, that’s the saying, innit?”

Aziraphale handed the shell to Crowley so he could examine it for himself. “There’s something to be said for evolution.”

Crowley nodded, lost in the mother-of-pearl. For a moment, it looked like he was about to throw it back into the sea. Then, he thought better of it, and gave it back to Aziraphale. “You ready for tomorrow?”

“The wedding? I don’t see why I wouldn’t be.”

“Good. Me neither.”

Another pause.

“‘S hard for me to admit this sort of thing. But… I admire  _ them _ , too.”

Aziraphale’s voice was taut. “I never said what Anathema told me when I first called to RSVP. About her and Newt, and the, pardon my repetition, evolution of their relationship.”

Crowley looked at him, surprised. “What’d she tell you? I thought I was the only one with the story.”

“And you didn’t think to tell me?”

“I-I didn’t think it mattered. But... I guess I’ve changed my mind on that.”

Aziraphale paused, and then relaxed. “It’s gossip.”

“Is it?” asked Crowley. “I thought… well, I’ve been thinking more about it. Just today, mostly; didn’t think about much of anything back in California. Air there isn’t very friendly to deep thinking.”

The angel laughed and sat down on the dry sand, motioning for Crowley to do the same. “You know as well as I do that the bookshop can be like that sometimes, too.”

“No,” Crowley drawled playfully, leaning back on his hands, letting his fingers dig into the sand. “But - my point is, wasn’t their - well, Newt’s - fear simply… doing what was expected of them?”

“That’s how I understood it.”

“What if they were… I don’t know, framing it the wrong way? What if it’s not about expectation? Who’s there to do the expecting? Who’s putting that pressure on them?”

Aziraphale gave him a pointed look. “Well, Anathema. Or, rather, Agnes.”

“Where did Agnes get it from?”

The waves, approaching closer and closer now as high tide loomed, answered Crowley’s question. Their roaring was enough for a little while.

Then, Crowley laid back on the beach, folding his hands over his chest, and looked skywards, and the dense sound of the waves seemed a little less dense. “All I’m saying is that I think Anathema and Newt were wrong. Which, apparently, they figured that out, too. What’s fear good for, anyway?”

This made Aziraphale laugh again. “For mortals, many things. Fear keeps them alive. Fear keeps them from hurting each other.”

“And for us?”

A particularly large wave crashed ahead of them, and the milky seafoam almost reached their feet. A cloud drifted over the moon, and the angel’s hand over Crowley’s. 

“Maybe it means the opposite,” Aziraphale murmured. “It makes us hurt each other. In our ignorance, we offend.”

“Maybe it does. Either way, I… I don’t want to be afraid anymore. I don’t want to be afraid of being afraid,” Crowley declared. “You?”

Aziraphale breathed slowly in. “I learned how not to fear a long time ago.”

Rolling onto his side to look at the angel’s silhouette, a bright beacon against the muddy darkness, Crowley looked hopeful. “Would you teach me?”

Maybe Aziraphale already had, because Crowley chose this as the moment he lost the will to fear, and leaned over to kiss Aziraphale.

It wasn’t long, because it didn’t need to be long. It was simple; warm and sweet and quiet. And most of all, it was lucid. Unlike waking up from a dream, like Crowley had expected. More like finding that dreams are inferior because they cannot be shared.

And for the first time in quite a while, he  _ did _ want to.

Having proven himself, and trusting that he’d do this again if he so wished to, Crowley pulled away and sat back up, thinking about how great the simple act of smiling felt when he wasn’t actively trying to do it. Aziraphale followed. 

“I feel better prepared for tomorrow, now,” the angel confessed.

“That’s right. We’re going to go tomorrow, and we’re going to have a great time, and know in our hearts that they’re doing the right thing.”

Aziraphale chuckled. “You’re getting awfully sentimental.”

“I’m being awfully honest, you mean.” 

“If that’s the case, then,” Aziraphale replied through a grin. “And Crowley?”

“Mm?”

Aziraphale traced his finger in the sand, though it was impossible to make out what he was drawing in the darkness. “I don’t know if you could tell, but I’ve really grown to like it here. The sunlight, you know, it’s a nice change. The kind of thing where you don’t know how much you need it until you have it. Therefore, I’d like to make a request.”

“Anything, you name it.”

“I’d like to come back with you to California. Indefinitely. I know it wouldn’t be like this for you, but I find myself craving the change in scenery.”

Crowley thought again of the half-forgotten blur of his balcony, asleep or wishing he was asleep, eyes closed for sixteen to twenty hours per day. “Oh, I disagree. Actually, it’ll be a massive change in scenery for me. A welcome one. Oh, Aziraphale.” His voice was beginning to come out a bit pleady, and he hoped the angel could hear it. “Please come back with me. It’s… that’s all I could ask for.”

Aziraphale scooted over and planted a quick kiss on his cheek. “Consider it done. Now, we’re going to get swept away if we sit here any longer; it must be nearly high tide.”

“I wouldn’t mind getting swept away,” Crowley commented.

“Actually,” Aziraphale said as he stood, pulling the demon up by the hand with him, “it’s probably too late for us.. Nevertheless, shall we head back? I’ll need to find the number for the airline and tell Adam he’ll be making his own way back to London.`”

“D’you want any help?”

Aziraphale stopped in his tracks. “You’re offering to help me?”

Crowley shrugged, knowing that that was exactly what he would’ve done for the vast majority of his long life. “Maybe I just really want you coming back with me.”

“Crowley, you don’t have to make my travel arrangements to be assured of that!”

“I’m just saying! If you wanted me to!” 

“Rest assured, there are many, many things I want you to do, and this, my dear, is not one of them.” 

“Well, then, what’s the first that comes to mind?”

“Honestly?”

“Of course, ‘honestly’.”

Aziraphale looked at him, and for the first time in recent memory, he looked like the ancient immortal being that he was. But - and this was new - he looked like that, plus all the Aziraphale he wanted. The subtle mischief, the unassailable kindness, the unwavering strength. “I want you to rest up well for tomorrow. I want us to be at our best for these two people we love very dearly, and who love us in return.”

Crowley looked down, smiling to himself. He couldn’t help knowing the angel was right.

“You’re free to tell me what exactly ‘resting up well’ entails. I trust that you’ll make the correct choice.”

He stopped trying to hide his face, and instead wrapped his hand in Aziraphale’s. “Don’t think it matters. I’ll be at my best tomorrow regardless.”

Aziraphale squeezed his hand in return, picking up his pace unconsciously. “I’ll hold you to that, you know.”


End file.
